
Class T)T/0 7 ^_ 

Book j^ 

CopyrightN? 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



THE CHANGING 

VALUES OF ENGLISH SPEECH 



Other Books by Dr. Bell: 



The Worth of Words 

(Hinds, Noble & Eldredge) 



Songs of The Shawangunks 

Aala Deene, and Other Poems 

Words of the Wood (Poems) 

(Small, Maynard & Co.) 



THE CHANGING VALUES 

of 
ENGLISH SPEECH 

By 
Ralcy Husted Bell 






IT* 




ru 



HINDS, NOBLE & ELDREDGE, Publishers 

3 1 - 33 - 35 West J 5th Street New York City 






LIBRARY of CONGRESS 
Two CoDies Recerved 

FEB 10 1909 

Copyriirnt Entry 
fLASS OL XXC. No. 

copy a! u 



/«>« 



C &¥t 




Copyright, 1909 

by 

Hinds, Noble & Eldredge 









To 

The Late 

JOHN JAMES INGALLS 

Scholar, Statesman, Friend 



. . . . the history of the single word 
bedlam cannot be completely understood 
without some knowledge of the history 
of Europe and Asia for more than fifteen 
hundred years. It would be hard to find 
a more striking instance of the absurdity 
of regarding the study of words as a 
narrow and trivial diversion of pedants. 
Words are the signs of thoughts and 
thoughts make history. 

WORDS AND THEIR WAYS IN ENGLISH SPEECH 

Greenough and Kittredge 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

The White Island (Britain) 1 

The Aborigines 13 

Changing Values 27 

English 35 

Early English 43 

Language-Change 55 

The Soul of Words 67 

Poetry And Its "Threadbare" Themes 83 

Syntax And a Word with Professor 

Lounsbury 95 

Intensives 109 

Variations in Word-meanings 121 

Style 131 

Distinctions in Word-meanings 153 

Some Further Distinctions 163 

The Origin op Language 179 

Some Old Celtic Friends 199 

English Orthography and "Simplified 

Spelling" 211 

Words Which Have Changed Since 

Shakspere Wrote The Tragedie of 

Macbeth 255 

Commonplace Poetry 269 

Books and Authors 281 

Index 289 



THE WHITE ISLAND 



THE WHITE ISLAND 

SO far as the English language is 
concerned, the most important piece 
of earth's geography is The White 
Island to the westward of Gaul. It 
was once an isolated spot which Fable 
peopled with grim giants. It has since 
become the most renowned kingdom of 
the world, and has given birth to the 
greatest of intellectual giants. 

The English tongue has become a 
rank polyglot, and is spreading over 
the earth like some hardy plant whose 
seed is sown by the wind. It has crossed 
seas to continents remote — it has taken 
root in foreign soil — it has become cos- 
mopolitan — it has grown forgetful of 
early forms — it has mixed with noisome 



The White Island 

weeds — it has blown new blossoms — it 
is putting forth strange buds, and will 
continue to grow, to change, to expand, 
to decay, and to take fresh root again 
throughout the ages to come; but it will 
never dissociate itself from the island 
which gave it birth. The English lan- 
guage and the Union-Jack seem almost 
to stand for the same thing: the glory 
of England. 

Whatever relates to the history and 
romance of the British Isles concerns 
the English language. Legend, tradi- 
tion and fable are not, usually, pure 
fabrications. They contain some truth 
with much invention. The invention is 
often a pleasing setting for the truth. 
History, on the other hand, while en- 
compassing much truth with some in- 
vention, too often uses its invention 
clumsily, to the end that truth appears 
distorted or is rendered unattractive and 
dry. The grotesque garments of Fable 



The White Island 

are gaudy — their masses of bright color 
attract the bees of the mind which, hav- 
ing good memory, return to them. 

Let us then turn back to the past 
and read why this "White Island" — this 
"Land of Green Hills" — was first called 
Albion and afterward Britain, 

There is an Eastern romance which 
tells us how badly the fifty sons of Danus, 
King of Greece, were treated by their 
wives, the fifty daughters of iEgistus, 
King of Egypt. These faithless spouses 
thirsted for power. The question as to 
who should be "boss" was uppermost in 
their minds. They hatched a murder- 
ous conspiracy by which they hoped to 
slay their husbands and to rule in their 
stead. One of their own sisters, as 
usual, betrayed them. Thereupon they 
were seized and set adrift in ships upon 
the sea. After many days of stormy 
weather, they landed in safety upon the 
shores of a large island which was un- 



The White Island 

inhabited. Upon this land, they made 
their home and called it Albion in honor 
of Albina, their eldest sister. Here they 
lived by the chase, as many of their 
sisters have done since, hunting thick- 
necked wild bulls, swift deer and in- 
tolerable boars. 

"And while filled with meat and drink, 
and with .... thoughts, they lay 
sleeping on the ground covered with 
the skins of wild beasts, dark brooding 
spirits swept toward them from the sky, 
and encircled them with their shadowy 
arms, and intoxicated them with their 
flaming breath." 

"By these were born huge and hideous 
giants which soon bore others, till they 
filled the whole land with a strange and 
fierce crew." 

Now, "Troy had fallen: the wander- 
ings of Eneas were past; and Ascanius 

6 



The White Island 

had died, leaving behind him his son 
Silvius." 

Silvius was gallant — a maid whom he 
loved was beautiful. Forsooth, a son 
was born to them. He was named 
Bru, or Brutus. It had been foretold 
by the wise soothsayers before his birth, 
that this child would be the death, as it 
were, of his parents; that through their 
death he should be driven from the land, 
and that a crown would come to him 
after many years. 

All this politely came to pass. The 
mother died at his birth. While he was 
yet a youth, one day a-hunting, he had 
the poor taste to shoot his father instead of 
a deer. For this indiscretion of thought- 
less boyhood, he was banished. He went 
to Greece. Having already tasted the 
honey of regicide, he hungered for the 
scalp of Pandrasus. His threats against 
the throne were so plausible, that the 
king grew nervous and softly persuaded 

7 



The White Island 

him, by the gift of his only daughter 
Imogen, to seek another land over which 
to rule — throwing into the bargain both 
sail and treasure. 

Accordingly, Brutus, "like Eneas of 
old, sailed forth upon the waters in search 
of a new land." On his way, he touched 
at a strange island, where Diana appeared 
to him and told him of winsome Albion, 
beyond Gaul, wherein he should prosper. 

"For thirty days and thirty nights they 
sailed past Africa and over the lake of 
Silvius, and over the lake of Philisteus: 
by Ruscikadan they took the sea, and by 
the mountain country of Azare. They 
fought with the pirates, and gained from 

i them such treasures that there was not a 

y 

man in the fleet who did not wear gold 
and pall. And by the pillars of Her- 
cules they were encompassed by mermen 
who sing songs so sweet that mariners 
will rest slothfully on their oars, and 



The White Island 

listen to them for days without wearying 
of their songs to hear — these impeded 
them much with their wicked crafts, 
but they escaped them safely." 

"In a peaceful sea, and among the 
playing fish they came to Dartmouth in 
Totnes. There the ships bit the sands, 
and with merry hearts the warriors 
went ashore." 

"It happened after many days that 
Brutus and his people were celebrating 
holy writs, with meat, with drink, and 
with merry glee sounds: with silver and 
with gold: with horses and with vest- 
ments." 

"Twenty strong giants descended the 
hills : trees were their clubs : in the centre 
of their foreheads was a single eye vivid 
as blue ice. They hurled huge stones 
and slew five hundred of the Trojans. 
But soon the fierce steel arrows of the 
Trojans whistled through the air, and 
blood began to spurt from their mon- 



The White Island 

strous sides. They tried to fly; but those 
darts followed them swift and revengeful, 
as birds of prey winged with the dark 
feathers of death." 

"Nineteen were slain and Geog-magog, 
their leader, was brought bound before 
Brutus, who ordered a wrestling match 
to be held between the giant and Cori- 
neus, a chieftain of his army." 

"A mighty crowd gathered upon the 
downs by the sea-cliff." 

"Corineus and the giant advanced 
toward each other, they yoked their arms 
and stood breast to breast. Their eyes 
gushed blood, their teeth gnashed like 
wild boars, their bones cracked. Now 
their faces were black and swollen, now 
* red and flaming with rage. Geog-magog 
thrust Corineus off his breast and draw- 
ing him back broke three of his ribs with 
his mighty hand. But Corineus was not 
overcome, he hugged the giant grimly 

to his waist, and grasping him by the 

10 



The White Island 

girdle swung him over the cliff upon 
the rocks below." 

"Which spot is called 'Geog-magog's 
leap' to this day. And to Corineus, the 
conqueror, was given a dukedom, which 
was thence called Corinee and thence 
Cornwall." 

"Brutus having conquered the giant 
offspring of the treacherous sisters, built 
a new Troy, and erected temples to 
the great Diana, and caused her to be 
worshipped throughout the land." 

"Which was named Britain after Bru- 
tus, the first man who set foot upon its 
shores." 



11 



THE ABORIGINES 



THE ABORIGINES 

THE origin of the aborigines of 
Britain has inspired a good deal of 
guess-work. The period of their 
arrival is so remote and the information 
concerning it is so hazy, that few writers 
care definitely to affirm much on the 
subject. 

According to Josephus, the Scythians 
were called Magogcei by the Greeks; 
and the Magogcei, most probably, were 
that tribe of the aborigines spoken of in 
the Welsh triad: 

"The first of the three chieftains who 
established the colony was Hu, the 
Mighty, who came with the original 
settlers. They came over the Hazy Sea 

15 



The Aborigines 

from the summer country, which is 
called Deffrobani, that is where Con- 
stinoblys now stands." 

At the time of Caesar's invasion, we 
are told by Tacitus and others that, 
there were at least three distinct tribes 
in Britain : the red-haired, blue-eyed Celts 
of the North; the Silures of Devon and 
Cornwall, and the " Cassiterides of the 
Scilly Isles, who had swarthy faces and 
dark curly hair, like the Iberi of Spain." 

In a poem called The Appeasing of 
Lhudd, by the renowned Taliesin of 
Wales, it appears that the Phoenicians, 
"at that time the pirate-scourges of the 
sea," were also "first" settlers of Britain: 

"A numerous race, fierce, they are said to have 

been, 
Were thy original colonists, Britain, first of 

isles, 
Natives of a country in Asia, and the city of 

Gafiz. 

16 



The Aborigines 

Said to have been a skilful people, but the dis- 
trict is unknown 

Which was mother to these children, warlike 
adventurers on the sea; 

Clad in their long dress, who could equal 
them ? 

Their skill is celebrated, they were the dread 
of Europe." 

It is more than likely that the abori- 
gines of Britain came from several re- 
gions of the East. The fable of Ma-gog 
and Brutus arose, perhaps, from the 
battles between the Phoenicians and the 
Scythians. We know that heroes are 
commonly referred to as giants in the 
war-tales of early peoples. 

This fable, which was once thought to 
have been a fabrication of the monks, 
"was first published by Geoffrey of Mon- 
mouth"; but later, "it was discovered in 
the historical poems of Tyssilia, a Welsh 
bard." 

For the fable of Albion, we are in- 
debted to "the ancient chronicles of 
2 17 



The Aborigines 

Hugh de Genesis, an historiographer now 
almost forgotten." The tale was taken 
seriously, and so set forth in his rhymes 
by John Hardyng. On the strength of it, 
he advanced the theory that his country- 
women had rightfully inherited their 
"desire for sovereignty," which he seemed 
to think was one of their marked pecu- 
liarities. 

So much for fable and legend of the 
dateless periods of conjecture. We will 
now turn to the historians, poets and 
philosophers. From them we learn that 
in the aboriginal day, the northern part 
of Britain was peopled by wild savages 
who roamed the forests naked, lived on 
the bark of trees and on the produce of 
the chase. They took refuge from severe 
weather in caves, or sheltered themselves 
as best they could in the woods. 

It is said that these savages went naked 
not because of barbarous ignorance, but 
rather on account of their vanity, which 

18 



The Aborigines 

with them was a passion. They tattooed 
their skins at an early age with a pointed 
instrument and the blue infusion of woad. 
In one respect they resembled the South- 
Sea Islanders. The Picts, or painted 
men, as the Romans called them, used 
the juice of green grass for coloring 
themselves. 

"Hunting was their favorite exercise and 
sport, and Britain, which was then filled 
with vast swamps and forests, afforded 
them a variety of game." 

'The elephant and the rhinoceros, 
the moose-deer, the tiger and other beasts 
now only known in Eastern climes, and 
mammoth creatures that have since dis- 
appeared from the face of the earth 
made the ground tremble beneath their 
stately tread. The brown bear preyed 
upon their cattle, and slept in the hollow 
oaks which they revered. The hyenas 
yelped by night, and prowled round the 

19 



The Aborigines 

fold of the shepherd. The beaver fished 
in their streams, and built its earthen 
towns upon their banks. And hundreds 
of wolves, united by the keen frosts of 
winter, gathered round the rude habita- 
tions of men and howled from fierce 
hunger, rolling their horrible green eyes 
and gnashing their white teeth." 

The pastoral tribes lived in the mid- 
lands. They owned flocks and herds 
which furnished them with food and 
clothing. 

"While the inhabitants of the South, 
who had been polished by intercourse 
with strangers, were acquainted with 
many of the arts of civilization, and were 
ruled by a priesthood which was second 
to none in the world for its learning and 
experience." 

"They manured their ground with 
marl, and sowed corn, which they stored 

20 



The Aborigines 

in thatched houses, and from which they 
took as much as was necessary for the 
day and having dried the ears, beat the 
grain out, bruised it, and baked it into 
bread." 

"They ate little of this bread at their 
banquets, but great quantities of flesh, 
which they either boiled in water, or 
broiled upon the coals, or roasted upon 
spits. They drank ale or metheglin, a 
liquor made of milk and honey, and sat 
upon the skins of wolves or dogs." 

"They lived in small houses built in a 
circular form, thatched with rushes into 
the shape of a cone; an aperture being 
left by which the smoke might escape." 

"Their dress was of their own manu- 
facture. A square mantle covered a 
vest and trousers, or a deeply-plaited 
tunic of braided cloth; the waist was en- 
circled by a belt, rings adorned the 
second finger of each hand, and a chain 

of iron or brass was suspended from the 

21 



The Aborigines 

neck. These mantles, at first the only 
coverings of the Britons, were of one 
color, with long hair on the outside, and 
were fastened upon the breast by a clasp; 
with the poorer classes by a thorn." 

"The heads were covered with caps 
made of rushes, and their feet with sandals 
of untanned skin; specimens of which 
are still to be met with — of the former in 
Wales, of the latter in the Shetland 
Isles." 

"The women wore tunics, wrought 
and interwoven with various colors, over 
which was a loose robe of coarser make, 
secured with brazen buckles. They let 
their hair flow at freedom, and dyed it 
yellow like the ladies of ancient Rome; 
and they wore chains of massive gold 
about their necks, bracelets upon their 
arms, rings upon their fingers." 

"They were skilled in the art of weav- 
ing, in which, however, the Gauls had 
obtained a still greater proficience. The 

22 



The Aborigines 

most valuable of their cloths were manu- 
factured of fine wool of different tints, 
woven chequer-wise, so as to fall into 
small squares of various colors. They 
also made a kind of cloth, which, without 
spinning or weaving, was, when worked 
up with vinegar, so hard and impenetrable 
that it would turn the edge of the sharpest 
sword." 

"They were equally famous for their 
linen, and sail-cloths constituted a great 
part of their trade." 

"When they had finished the linen in 
the loom, they had this curious method 
of bleaching it: 

"The flax having been whitened be- 
fore it was sent to the loom, the unspun 
yarn was placed in a mortar where it 
was pounded and beaten in water; it 
was then sent to the weaver, and when 
it was received from him made into 
cloth, it was laid upon a large smooth 
stone, and beaten with broad-headed 



The Aborigines 

cudgels, the juice of poppies being mingled 
with the water." 

"For scouring clothes, they used a 
soap invented by themselves, which they 
made from the fat of animals and the 
ashes of certain vegetables." 

"Distinct from these southern tribes 
were the inhabitants of the Cassiterides, 
who wore long black garments, and beards 
falling on each side of their mouths like 
wings, and who are described by Pliny 
as 'carrying staves with three serpents 
curling round like Furies in a tragedy.' " 

These were the aborigines of Britain — 
these were the ancient lords of the Land 
of the Green Hills; and they were in 
many respects superior to the Low- 
German robbers who swept over their 
domain, drove them back among the 
hills, despoiled them of their wives and 
cattle, and at last all but destroyed their 
dialects. 

24 



The Aborigines 

They were a brave, hardy, generous, 
virtuous people, taken all in all. They 
promised a civilization of splendor, and 
a language of rare beauty and strength. 
And the relatively few words which 
English has happily preserved from their 
neglected dialects are some of the choicest 
and best in our tongue. 



26 



CHANGING VALUES 



CHANGING VALUES 

EVERYTHING changes: part of the 
time it is growth, and part of the 
time decay. The "dead" lan- 
guages represent decay. The subtleties 
of meaning which surround words — the 
aura of a living tongue — are the first to 
pass away. The values of letters, or 
symbols, are next to disappear; pro- 
nunciation is lost, and, finally, only the 
skeleton remains. As time proceeds, we 
retain less and less of the spirit of a lan- 
guage that is "dead." This gradual 
but certain loss is comparable to decay. 

As surely as dead languages decay, 
living languages change. For, while lan- 
guage is not an organic growth, per se, 
yet its changes may be compared with the 
evolution, the devolution and the death 

29 



Changing Values 

of an organic growth. Language is a 
servant, pure and simple, of the intellect; 
or, shall we say, a function of the intel- 
lect which maintains a kind of immate- 
rial parallelism with material, organic 
changes? Upon the intellect it must 
depend as surely as the mind depends 
upon the body; and when the intellect 
abandons a particular form of speech, it 
perishes — just as neglected words perish 
when they pass out of use. For all 
practical purposes, then, we must deal 
with language as though it were, as it 
virtually is, a thing organic. 

When the English Channel began to 
cut its way through the chalk cliffs, 
many may have deplored the damage 
done to property and landscape. Some 
old women with twig-brooms may have 
tried to sweep the encroaching waters 
back toward the North Sea. Maybe 
some great chieftain — some royal Canute 
— commanded the salt dew to keep off 

30 



Changing Values 

his grass, and the tide to recede from 
his meadows. But the arm of the sea 
was not withdrawn, and the result tells 
a story of the inevitability of natural 
law. 

The changes of speech are likewise 
inevitable. The spirit of change is every- 
where inexorable, so far as we know. It 
cannot be stayed by command of prigs; 
it cannot be accelerated by chieftains or 
kings; it cannot be cowed by scholastic 
moss-backs, and it is altogether contempt- 
uous toward fussy old money-bags fore- 
ever scratching a psychologic itch. 

The law of change dominates alike 
the personal and impersonal estates of 
man, just as the law of gravity rules the 
stars. If change is not merely another 
side of gravity , at least it runs parallel 
with gravity in wondrous sweeps, fas- 
cinating curves, mighty swirls and direct 
flow. 

Change proceeds certain-wise, and we 

31 



Changing Values 

call it progress — contrary-wise, and we 
call it retrogression; it turns and eddies, 
and we call it stagnation or non-pro- 
gression; it moves faster than we are 
accustomed to notice, and we call it 
revolution; when its slower order is 
apparent, we call it evolution; when it 
reverses itself, as it were, we call it devo- 
lution; and finally, what we do not under- 
stand about it we call GOD, and then 
proceed at once to discourse learnedly 
upon his divine attributes. 

So with gravitation — displacement of 
non-aetheric things in calm aether, or 
aether in motion — whichever may be the 
case: — one phase we call attraction, an- 
other repulsion, another electricity, others 
heat, light, magnetism and so forth. 
But both change and aetheric motion, or 
gravity, or relative displacement, are 
primordial, and so far as we know to the 
contrary, universal. 

Yet, in a small way, we have learned 

32 



Changing Values 

how to turn gravity into certain courses 
according to our needs; we have suc- 
ceeded in bending it slightly to our will — 
that is to say, to our service. 

So may we turn language-change into 
ways of usefulness to our higher needs. 
But we cannot accomplish this by acts 
of parliament or by the dictates of well- 
meaning asses, nor, unfortunately, by 
the well- worded theories of philosophers. 
It must be done by the human mind in 
the parliament of the masses — by the 
irrevocable authority of usage. All vital 
changes in language must proceed in 
accordance with the tendency of the 
mass-effect of the minds using it. 

And so we write books on the subject, 
think on the subject, discuss it indi- 
vidually and in conference, and tell one 
another all about it, only to see how 
futile our efforts are, and how slight is 
the general effect. Usage is the secret 
of the changing values of speech, and 

3 33 



Changing Values 

back of usage is the need, and back of 
the need, general ignorance or public 
enlightenment; in a word, public taste, 
even as against personal culture. 



34 



ENGLISH 



ENGLISH 

AS for English, the tongue we are 
considering, it probably reached 
its perfection several centuries ago. 
Up to that time it grew. Since then it 
has merely changed — is now changing, 
and will continue to change. The process 
of change now is, and for a long time 
probably will continue to be, comparable 
to decay. For the English language is in 
a sense a dead language. "English," as 
applied to our present tongue, is a sort 
of poetic license — a habit and figure of 
speech. "English" is a polyglot. As it 
stands today, we may, for the sake of 
example, liken it to the heart of a tree, or 
even compare it to an ephemeral temple, 
the architecture of which lacks unity and 
is botchy — an unfinished, ever-changing 

37 



English 

piece of patch-work. Only in the struc- 
ture and design of the sanctum sanctorum 
do we find purity, strength and beauty — a 
style that is nearly satisfying. Never- 
theless, the temple is destined to be, I 
believe, the most useful, the strongest 
and most beautiful of all the temples of 
speech. 

At present the builders are experi- 
mentists: the workmen, for the most 
part, are ignorant gropers for what they 
conceive to be the needful. This is the 
rule : some bring misshapen yellow bricks 
with which to replace pieces of pure 
marble of perfect cut. The Architect — 
that is to say, Usage — is careless, clumsy, 
awkward and slow: a sort of blind copy- 
ist, forever modifying the design — tearing 
down and rebuilding according to the 
Master, the human mind in dynamic 
mass. Master and Architect assume long 
periods of time for the completion of 
their work; and they proceed without 



English 

especial plans, since they have not yet 
learned the art of predetermination. In 
foresight they are woefully blind ; and yet 
their labors are guided by a sublime 
faith in the result. Peoples are essen- 
tially fatalists. 

It is only necessary to read the "papers" 
and follow the discussions of the technical 
and professional societies, such as, and 
notably, the American Institute of Elec- 
trical Engineers, the American Associa- 
tion of Mechanical Engineers, the Amer- 
ican Electro-Chemical Society, and others, 
in order to obtain an insight into the 
methods of unconscious corruption of 
English. The few men in these large and 
representative bodies who can write well 
and use their own language logically are 
literally forced to use a large percentage 
of bastard words so that they may be 
understood by their colleagues. Read 
the brief of the average lawyer, and the 
contribution of the average M.D. to 



English 

medical and surgical "literature" if you 
are not already totally paralyzed by the 
abominable "English" of, for instance, 
the electrical engineers. The cackling of 
a bevy of ignorant, gossiping old women 
is classic literature by comparison. 

In a word, so-called "class-journalism" 
and class-contributions generally are 
great corrupters of decent speech. The 
discourses of the Clergy, on the other 
hand, have done more for the cause of 
good language than they have even for 
the cause of good conduct and morals. 
But great as has been the salutary effect 
of the pulpit upon our language, it is 
hardly comparable with the greater good 
effect of journalism. The "editorial" 
and special writers of "newspaper Eng- 
lish" are the strongest conservators of 
our language, because their influence for 
good form is constant and far-reaching. 

The average "reporter" is not particu- 
larly a paragon in many and nameless 

40 



English 

essentials; and yet, be it said to his 
eternal glory, his English is far from 
vile when one considers the kind of 
stuff he drinks, the stress and action 
laid upon his work. Daily the average 
college professor commits sins of speech 
far more heinous than the nimble-witted, 
hustling reporter ever does — at least, so 
it seems to me. 

So we find the conservators of our 
tongue working like busy bees for the 
purity and sweetness of speech; and not 
far away in greater numbers we see the 
corrupters working like tumble-bugs in 
linguistic corruption. So far as language 
is concerned, both bee and tumble-bug, 
as it were, obey secondary laws in the 
conserving of good form on the one hand, 
and in the perpetrating of execrable form 
on the other. The stress of these modern 
times is the primary law which shapes 
men and directs their interests. Lan- 
guage is merely a code of business con- 

41 



English 

venience: to the great masses of man- 
kind it is in no sense a fine art. To the 
newspaper writers and to the authors, 
good form in linguistics is merely a 
matter of technique — a secondary law 
which has fallen almost to the level of 
metier, so to speak. 

And yet, out of all this seething mass of 
fermenting speech will come, we hope, the 
pure wine of expression worthy the gods — 
a wine which will be drunken by future 
generations of men in song and story, and 
which shall inspire interpretations of 
glory on the lips of science and art. 



42 



EARLY ENGLISH 



EARLY ENGLISH 

ENGLISH has ever been a com- 
posite tongue. When Julius Caesar 
made his first diplomatic call at 
the Court of the British people, in the 
year 55 B. C, he found the inhabitants 
speaking a Celtic dialect. When the great 
general returned to Rome, he left be- 
hind him a memory and perhaps a very 
few Latin words. If the memory of 
the genial Caesar impressed the Britons, 
it was not altogether on account of his 
tongue. 

Such, however, was not the case with 
Agricola, a hundred and thirty-six years 
later; for with the building of his famous 
forts, he committed other and more 
lasting abominations. Not content with 
the making of Britain a Roman province, 

45 



Early English 

he introduced Latin, which in turn led 
to an invasion by a new and strange 
religion somewhere about the year 180, 
present era. But Latin was not in- 
troduced first into Britain by Generals 
Csesar and Agricola. Some stray Latin 
words had found their way there in 
prehistoric times. They were, however, 
meek, non-insistent words and were easily 
subjugated. They were the mere scout- 
words of a later-day, arrogant army of 
Latin words which overran Europe and 
America. 

After the withdrawal of the Romans, a 
notorious Mr. Hengest invaded Britain 
with his ruthless hordes of Low-Germans 
who spoke Teutonic dialects which, col- 
lectively and loosely, have been called 
Anglo-Saxon. Three tribes, speaking 
these dialects of the great Aryan or Indo- 
European language, played important 
roles in the conquest of Britain, the divi- 
sion of her territory, and the subjugation 



46 



Early English 

of the native tongue. This began in the 
year of grace 449; and the three tribes 
are known as Angles, Saxons and Jutes. 
The Angles took possession of the region 
north of the Humber, which included a 
goodly part of low-Scotland as far to 
the northward as Aberdeen. The Saxons 
fell upon the country south of the Thames 
and made it theirs; while the modest 
Jutes contented themselves with the Mid- 
land district, and founded the rich King- 
dom of Kent. 

This was the birth of the so-called 
Anglo-Saxon tongue in Angles-Land 
(England), as Britain was called. Broad- 
ly speaking, Anglo-Saxon was a union of 
the Saxon (Old-English and Norman) 
dialects with the Northumbrian and Mer- 
cian (Anglian or Englisc). 

For the sake of confusion, in the name 
of convenience, the vernacular of ancient 
England has been divided into three 
parts: Old-English (one-third Wessex), 

47 



Early English 

A.D. 450—1150; Middle-English, 1150— 
1300; Early-English, 1300—1500. How- 
ever, as details must be avoided as much 
as possible in this discourse, Early 
English denotes, in a general way, the 
vernacular down to the year 1500. All 
the dialects, together with many foreign 
words, contributed to this tongue; and it 
is well known that in the eighth century 
the dialects of the Angles, Jutes and 
Saxons were clearly intelligible to one 
another. The Northumbrian was first 
to attain ascendancy over the other two; 
Wessex came second, and finally the 
Mercian prevailed. 

As Latin w^ords had become implanted 
in Celtic speech, so did Celtic infuse 
words into Anglo-Saxon; and the Danes, 
by their invasion of England in 787, 832, 
and especially in the year 855, when they 
wintered at Kent, sowed Scandinavian 
words, more or less, over all England 
until the Norman Conquest in 1066. 

48 



Early English 

This composite tongue, beginning roughly 
at 450, developed into what is known as 
Early English. 

After the year 450 an influx of other 
foreign words gradually modified and 
finally dominated Early English. Trade 
with Holland naturally introduced many 
Dutch words. Early English was not only 
already composite, but it was so much 
under the influence of foreign tongues 
in 1258, that when Henry III issued his 
famous proclamation in the native lan- 
guage on the 18th of October, in that 
year, it made a sensation that has not 
entirely died out even to this day. Ed- 
ward III, in 1358, brought back from 
his invasion of France some French 
words. In the same year English was 
first taught in the schools. As early as 
1339 law-courts conducted their plead- 
ings in English and recorded them in 
Latin. Thus we find that Anglo-French, 
Norman-French and Latin, which had 

4 49 



Early English 

held powerful sway over Early English, 
were partly pushed aside in 1385. And 
yet, as late as 1455-71, during the Wars 
of the Roses, there were "three distinct 
and well-marked literary dialects of Eng- 
lish : the Northern (Northumbrian) , Mid- 
land (Mercian), and Southern (Saxon)." 
The result of that struggle gave the as- 
cendancy to the Midland, which became 
the standard literary dialect, and has 
since held sway over the language. 

Then came the introduction of printing 
into England in the year 1477, which 
wrought a change in the spelling. The 
heterogeneous, phonetic style, in which 
everybody suited himself, gave way to a 
more or less uniform method which has 
continued with all its changing faults, 
until more recent times, when jumping- 
jack spelling reformers pine and cry for a 
liberty that is as confusing as it is olden. 

During and after the reign of Ed- 
ward VI, many Greek words were adopted 

50 



Early English 

directly by Science and Literature — words 
which were refused by the spoken ver- 
nacular. Before the time of Cheke, who 
taught at Cambridge, Greek words came 
principally by way of Latin and French; 
that is to say, indirectly; and, for the 
most part, these Latinized and Gallicized 
Greek words concerned ecclesiastical and 
medical subjects. 

Before 1300 the number of French 
words introduced into Early English 
was inconsiderable. They came spar- 
ingly at first after the Norman Conquest; 
but during the fourteenth century "the 
influx of them was immense"; and at 
the beginning of the fifteenth century 
"the composite character of our language 
was completely established." 

Through the law-courts many Old- 
French words came into use and are still 
retained — words no longer in current use, 
together with many that never found their 
way there. 

51 



Early English 

Early English had reached a high 
degree of development in the eleventh 
century. The influence of Norman- 
French on Wessex, the literary dialect at 
the time of the Norman Conquest, was 
at first one of suppression; its influence 
was curtailed to its own province. The 
court consisted of Normans who con- 
tinued to speak their own tongue. Nor- 
man-French became the language of 
society as well. The literary men no 
longer found it advisable to write in the 
Wessex, but chose, instead, their own 
local dialects when writing in the ver- 
nacular. "In other words, the Norman 
Conquest put the dialects of England once 
more on their mettle." 

After the loss of Normandy to England, 
early in the thirteenth century, "the spe- 
cific influence of Norman-French upon 
the English language was very slight 
indeed. ... In the latter part of 
the thirteenth century and throughout 

52 



Early English 

the Fourteenth," Norman-French gave 
way to Central or Parisian French, which 
"was now the recognized standard on the 
Continent, and the French of the English 
Court was not Norman, but as good 
Parisian French as the nobility could 
muster." And we find that the large 
majority of French words introduced 
into English since the year 1300 came 
from the Parisian French. 

Through the influence of the Hebrew 
Scriptures, the Semitic languages — He- 
brew and Arabic — also contributed some 
words to Early English. This was but 
natural, since the Scriptures had made 
them familiar to the Greek, Latin and 
French authors. At the beginning of 
the sixteenth century, there were vir- 
tually no other sources from which Eng- 
lish drew foreign words. This brings us 
to the year 1500, at which Modern Eng- 
lish begins. 



53 



LANGUAGE-CHANGE 



LANGUAGE-CHANGE 

THE need as surely precedes a new 
word, as the seed the plant. The 
growth of language is firmly rooted 
in the soil of common necessity. To the 
student, there should be no mystery in its 
growth — nothing startling in its change. 
The phenomenon of language-growth does 
not warrant the usual vague, metaphys- 
ical explanation so dear to many writers 
on the subject. The trouble with these 
expounders is, that their learning con- 
fuses rather than clarifies their under- 
standing. Over-specialized endeavor often 
distorts the perspective. There is a kind 
of hypnotic embarrassment, or something 
akin to it, in large profusion of detail. 

Suppose one were to describe the evo- 
lution of the apple, for instance : Summers 
by the thousand have kissed its cheek; 

57 



Language-change 

unnumbered dawns have wept wooing 
tears upon its pink bloom; countless 
dreaming days have breathed warmly 
upon its leaves; until finally, we behold 
the hope of the sun, as a holy prayer 
fulfilled, in the ripened flesh of the per- 
fected fruit. We may trace the apple 
back from its present development to 
those early days when it was a wild, 
acrid, gnarly thing scarcely larger than a 
cherry. We may note the changes of its 
growth, and the causes producing them. 
It may interest such of us as are inclined 
to the study of chemistry, to consider its 
acids and their slow modifications — to 
direct inquiries into the action of sun- 
light upon chlorophyl. The effects of 
soil, climate and cultivation may be noted. 
The process of grafting — inter-marrying 
of varieties — may justly claim our atten- 
tion; but it would hardly profit us to 
spend much time in speculating as to the 
number of green apples required two 

58 



Language-change 

hundred and fifty thousand years ago to 
disturb the digestion of a young savage. 
And yet, unfortunately, there are well- 
known writers upon language, who would 
lead us into speculations equally useless 
concerning words. 

Much has been written to no purpose 
on the origin of words. Definite in- 
formation on the subject would be pleas- 
ing; but heavy guessing dragged through 
pages of wearisome and stilted discourses 
is tiresome, to say nothing more. 

Of this we may be reasonably sure: 
Perfected language was never put into 
man's mouth, as a juicy apple, from the 
skies. Language is as surely a develop- 
ment as is man himself a development. 
Every word that ever blessed his lips was 
complement to a need. As needs slowly 
dawned upon human consciousness, signs 
were invented to tally them. At first 
they were gestures, and later, combina- 
tions of gestures and sounds; these signs 

59 



Language-change 

were as savage as the needs they named. 
Even now, it is not a very far cry from 
the growl of a savage gnawing at a bone, 
to the commands of some folk at table in 
our fashionable hostelries. 

From the rude signs of primitive man 
all languages have evolved. At first, 
there could have been little or no relation 
between these coarse symbols of want. 
Gradually, relations came into being and 
slowly widened, until the golden threads of 
common thought wove the more chastened 
symbols into that meaning which we call 
speech; and, at last, into a tongue capable 
of expressing the soul of Keats, or all that 
a civilized man may feel and dream. 

It is precisely as man develops soul, 
and synchronously, that his words ac- 
quire sense — so much and no more. 
According to the same law, delicacy of 
feeling fathers euphemism of expression, 
even as a brutal instinct shows itself in 
heartless words and cruel tones. 

60 



Language-change 

It is a misfortune that so many earnest 
students in language, who write learnedly 
on the subject, concern themselves so 
little with wider research. For, truly, 
language is a thing of life — not in the 
sense of an animal organism, but in that 
greater sense of encompassing every- 
thing, interweaving through everything, 
and depending upon everything in the 
universe that makes conscious and sub- 
conscious impression upon the sensitive 
nervous structure of the high type of 
organized beings who use it. 

A proper comprehension, therefore, of 
the spirit of language, and of the pro- 
perties of words, must rest upon the 
multitudinous things with which the in- 
tellect of man has to do. To be qualified, 
as a teacher, to discuss language with its 
wondrous and changing word-mosaics, 
its varying phrases and shifting idioms, 
one should be acquainted with physics 
and philosophy, with the sciences and 

61 



Language-change 

arts, with the development and induction 
of harmony in sound, color and form — 
with the trails of ontogeny, the blazings of 
phylogeny — in a word, with the high- 
ways and byways of human thought 
and human feeling not only, but with 
that pantheism of feeling, as it were, 
which lies beneath all expression. Just 
as even the dimmest understanding of 
psychology must be based upon an ac- 
quaintance with the phenomena of physi- 
ology, electro-chemistry, mechanics and 
physics; upon evolution, natural selec- 
tion, environed growth and heredity, so 
is the comprehension of the soul of words 
and the spirit of a tongue dependent upon 
some slight understanding, at least, of 
countless things pertinent to the develop- 
ment of language, and of the race 
using it. 

As I have said elsewhere, language 
serves man according to his needs. The 
cannibal gets on very well with long-pig 

62 



Language-change 

and short-pig; but the soul of a Shak- 
spere would be starved to death with the 
paucity of a cannibal tongue. 

Language-change is not always lan- 
guage-growth — but is often mistaken for 
growth. In ethics, for example, lan- 
guage does not seem to change materially, 
because, perhaps, ethics has practically 
stood still for many centuries. In looking 
backward we may see, to be sure, a chang- 
ing sense of delicacy reflected in words — 
but that is about all. 

Whether the human race is making 
real progress, or merely shifting its posi- 
tion of interest from philosophy to me- 
chanics and commercialism, may be ques- 
tioned by some; but that it is engaged 
in tremendous change, no one can doubt. 
It is patent that the overwhelming major- 
ity of the race is primarily and basically 
interested in commercialism and mechan- 
ics. To millions of souls, self-preserva- 
tion is adjunctive to these. The com- 

63 



Language-change 

plex and astounding changes that have 
occurred in these fields of endeavor 
have revolutionized the world. Language 
must keep pace with the change — and 
it surely will. 

This means addition and modification 
of words and their varying significances. 
Whether this irresistible change will con- 
stitute a growth in which shall be the 
elements of strength, utility and beauty — 
simplicity it is inevitably losing — or, 
whether the change will merely overrun 
us in a rank Babel of confusion, depends, 
of course, upon the manners of mankind 
through ages to come. 

We hope that all linguistic change will 
purify itself on the lips of the world. It 
is certain that language, sweet and pure 
as a woodland spring, should be a blessed 
inheritance to the children of men, even 
as light, air and soil. In a sense, lan- 
guage is an inheritance; but only in a 
sense. For as light, air and soil are 

64 



Language-change 

denied by barbarous conditions unto 
thousands upon thousands of human 
beings, so is wholesome language denied 
them. The soulful element of their 
tongue is withheld from them by similar 
causes which deny them their birth- 
right of air, light and soil. They get 
just enough of any of these to support 
life on the lowest planes of thought and 
being. It should be the bounden duty 
of the thoughtful person to try to conserve 
the force and beauty of his tongue, thereby 
rendering wide service to all. 

Language will change as human in- 
terests change. No one should wish to 
restrict its elasticity or retard its normal 
growth; but we should see to it, that it 
does not overrun the fair garden of the 
soul in wild, uncultivated profusion. It 
should not be allowed to diverge from 
the parallelism of fact. Its wilder ele- 
ments, as it were, should not be unduly 
encouraged lest they acquire pernicious 

5 65 



Language-change 

activity. In that, there is no real growth, 
or, to say the least, not the most whole- 
some growth. And press however hard 
we may the careful classic brake to 
ever-rolling speech, the wheel will yet 
move fast enough for every need, and yet 
find enough of vulgar soil to cling to it. 
In time we hope this will not be. When 
man shall learn to breed the babes of 
soul as carefully as now he breeds the 
supple flesh of speed in beasts, all this 
will change. Then the common speech 
will be the only classic tongue; but be- 
tween then and now, we must also learn, 
that human life is more valuable than 
dollars — that earth and air and light 
and health and joy are the birthright of 
babes — that women should bear only 
welcome burdens — that failures and mis- 
fits of poverty and crime and ignorance 
have no right to add to the population of 
the world. Until then, we must safe- 
guard our speech as we would our morals. 

66 



THE SOUL OF WORDS 



THE SOUL OF WORDS 

I 

THE "inner life" of man is a myth. 
A very ancient superstition, which 
has not yet entirely passed away, 
endowed man with a mysterious attribute 
called "inner life." That view is no 
longer held by the thoughtful element 
of our kind. Metaphorically, we speak 
quite properly of the soul of words and of 
man, and of the spirit of a tongue. In 
this sense, soul can mean little else than 
the harmonized, summed-up, or aggregate 
characteristics which are pleasing in a 
person or thing. It might be likened to a 
crystallization in human conception of 
that which common consent deems beau- 
tiful and good. That is somewhat differ- 
ent from the vague conception of "inner 

69 



The Soul of Words 

life" as applied to man. So, also, in the 
expression : the spirit of a tongue. Spirit 
here means the unbroken warp of gold, 
which harmonizes the relations of words 
into the woof of language, making it at 
once beautiful, useful and strong. 

If man were possessed of "inner life," 
deeply hidden from his fellows, it would 
surely find outlet in his speech, diffuse 
itself among his associates, and thus 
become not his inner, but in reality his 
outer, life. For, as certainly as the lan- 
guage of a people reflects its character, 
so do the words of a person, with astonish- 
ing accuracy, picture the soul of the 
speaker. The art of diplomacy is not 
subtle enough to lead the intelligent 
listener astray. Language never con- 
ceals thought from the keen-witted — 
from one who has eyes to see and ears to 
hear; and, paradoxical as it may be, it 
is also true that language too rarely 
reveals any real thought. 

70 



The Soul of Words 

The ancients recognized that as a man 
lives, so must he also speak. This being 
true, it might be urged that the first 
lessons in language should be lessons in 
right-living. Well and good! that cannot 
be gainsaid; but no lesson in right- 
living — the most difficult of all things to 
teach or learn — is complete without the 
facility to express clear and beautiful 
thought. This inheres in strong, sweet, 
wholesome speech developed into a re- 
sourceful tongue. 

It is thought by some, that a man's 
language mirrors his heart because he 
voluntarily selects from an immense num- 
ber of words a vocabulary to his liking 
and according to his needs — words which 
fit his mouth. But this is true in part 
only, and of a relatively small number 
of persons. Most folk have their words 
thrust upon them; yet, notwithstanding 
this, there is a nameless somewhat in 
their language besides individual words, 

71 



The Soul of Words 

that reveals character with terrible pre- 
cision. Phraseology, intonation, gesture, 
style: these are to be reckoned with. 
So, in a subject simple enough at first 
thought, is discovered increasing per- 
plexity as we ponder it. 

No one will deny that it would be better, 
if all were rich enough in experience 
with the beautiful, and fortunate enough 
in blood, and broad enough in culture, 
and philosophic enough in feeling, to 
select our vocabulary wisely and well 
from the elements of our tongue; but, 
alas, as this is impossible at our present 
stage of development, it becomes well- 
nigh imperative, that the more favored in 
this respect should concern themselves 
with classic speech; trusting the press 
and oral example to sow beautiful, strong 
words with liberal hand, until holy 
thought may widely blossom, and pure 
speech bless a wilderness of weeds into a 
world-garden of beautiful flowers. 

72 



The Soul of Words 

Suggestion is a potent element in this 
world's doings. It is powerful in lan- 
guage, as elsewhere — more potent in 
speech than many where, because it has to 
do so largely with vast numbers. The 
nature of an individual is rarely revolu- 
tionized by essays or mere oral preach- 
ments. The coarse man will be known 
by his adjectives. Impulsiveness and 
enthusiasm, logically, must deal with 
superlative degrees. The real thinker 
will show conscience and modesty in his 
speech. The pure in heart will speak 
from the fulness thereof, well knowing 
that baseness lingers on the breath and 
pollutes the air; that men have damned 
themselves, even as they have glorified 
themselves, with a single word. 

"The magic of literature lies in the 
words and not in any man. Witness, a 
thousand excellent, strenuous words can 
leave us quite cold or put us to sleep, 

73 



The Soul of Words 

whereas a bare half-hundred words 
breathed by some man in his agony, or 
in his exaltation, or in his idleness, ten 
generations ago can still lead whole 
nations into and out of captivity, can 
open to us the doors of three worlds, or 
stir us so intolerably that we can scarcely 
abide to look at our own souls." 

Sweet words — strong words, chosen 
with fine discrimination, scattered among 
the multitude may revolutionize a race; 
such is the ever-widening potency of 
their suggestion as related to numbers. 
It is fortunate that there is a fatality for 
the beautiful and good in this world; for, 
without it, all would have been lost ages 
ago. 



74 



II 

The great of earth may be divided 
into three classes: those who, by their 
mastery of words, give life to highest 
art; those who, by their mastery of 
harmony in sound, color and curve, 
thrill beauty into being; and those stu- 
dents in science who succeed without 
special recourse to the mastery of words, 
and without any marked reference to 
the soul of beauty. 

If Shakspere's fame needed other genius 
than his own to send it "down the ringing 
grooves of change," changeless in its 
glory, Ingersoll and Swinburne have sup- 
plied the want. It seems to me, that they 
have uttered the last word of praise; 
that they have painted the perfect picture 
of his marvellous soul with the matchless 
pigments of their own; and that what- 

75 



The Soul of Words 

ever more may be said must be merely 
commonplace by comparison. 

We know that Shakspere, consciously 
or not, had to do with the soul of words. 
He was easily king of metaphbr. The 
wondrous alchemy of his brain trans- 
formed the gross to gold; it touched the 
coarsest clay, and lo! it was aglow with 
love. This many-sided man toyed with 
words as a god might play with the hearts 
of men; and this god-like dalliance of 
his never brutalized his words. He 
breathed upon them and they wept. 
He threw them into careless, happy 
throngs where mirth and rollick-laughter 
soothed the hurts of day and banished 
the ghosts of night. He peopled the 
brain with beauty; threw strange sil- 
houettes of shadow over the horizon's 
edge; and far above the highest peaks 
of thought, he sowed all the heavens of 
the soul with myriad stars of hope. He 
thought, and his words were wise; he 

76 



The Soul of Words 

felt, and they thrilled with infinite pas- 
sion; he looked out upon the green fields 
of England, and in his soul every blossom 
was mated with a word; every blade of 
grass and leaf and brook and living 
thing were tallied with the teeming sym- 
bols of his brain. Within his heart the 
very stones had speech. Words to him 
were significant — more than lifeless blocks 
with which to rear the glittering domes of 
thought. He was an architect who built 
with life. He gave to words their weight 
and worth. He never debased a syllable 
of his tongue — never mutilated a word — 
never prostituted its meaning — never hu- 
miliated it into slavery. Every word, 
therefore, was a winged spirit eager to 
do homage to his genius; and through all 
these many years, they have served him 
as faithfully as love ever serves the heart 
of man. 

Herbert Spencer says: "Men ought to 
regard their language as an inheritance 

77 



The Soul of Words 

to be conserved, and improved so far as 
that is possible, and ought not to degrade 
it by reversion to lower types. It should 
be a matter of conscience not to misuse 
words; it should also be a matter of con- 
science to resist misuse of them. Es- 
pecially should our own language be 
thus guarded. If, as several unbiased 
foreign judges hold, the English language 
will be, and ought to be, the universal 
language, it becomes the more a duty 
to mankind to check bad habits of speech." 
Robert G. Ingersoll, one of the greatest 
masters of English speech, was also a 
lover of words. He handled them with 
the affection of a mother for her babe. 
He arranged them always with reference 
to three things: fact, force and beauty. 
With supreme tact, he never mixed un- 
congenial words. His art never had re- 
course to trick. His antitheses were of 
stress. Fact never marred the beauty of 
his speech, and its beauty never weakened 

78 



The Soul of Words 

its force. Within his heart dwelt in- 
finite tenderness — even for words. 

This is also true of all other great 
poets — there is no secret in their craft; 
Shakspere, Chaucer, Tennyson, Swin- 
burne, Poe, Burns and Hugo! all were 
lovers of words — and I hope of women. 
And so it must ever be. Voltaire aptly 
said: "The worst works are commonly 
the most defective in language." 

The genius of a tongue has reference 
to harmony, and harmony in this sense 
must be wooed primarily from the soul 
of words. 

Our language is virtually a thing of 
life; it is nourished by the people it 
serves; it must flourish or decay, ex- 
pand or shrink; it must grow clearer 
and more beautiful, or more complex 
and vague. Each one of us owes it a 
precise duty. No one has a right to sin 
against his mother tongue, and no one 
should be excused for so doing. Our 

79 



The Soul of Words 

words of daily use deserve and demand 
the same hygienic cleanliness that our 
persons deserve and demand. Beauty 
demands that they shall not be mutilated; 
utility demands that they shall not be 
confused; decency demands that they 
shall not be degraded; justice assures 
them consideration. It is as important 
to conserve the integrity and morality of 
words, as of peoples; indeed, the morality 
in one case may largely depend upon that 
of the other. Clean speech is as whole- 
some as fine linen. Careful speech is a 
form of real etiquette. Beautiful words 
are better than royal purples. 

It is not meant by this that our daily 
speech should be splinted in plaster 
moulds, or in any other manner robbed of 
its wholesome spontaneity, or that the 
natural exuberance of feeling should be 
suppressed, or that the heart should 
smother its wails beneath the compressed 
lips of false dignity. That is not human. 

80 



The Soul of Words 

Rigidity is rather more consistent with 
death than with life. Extremes seldom 
promote lasting good. 

If one is master of his words — heart to 
heart at ease with them — his style need 
concern him little. Style then is merely 
a question of individual temperament, 
and is ever lifeless, cold and false unless 
based upon these : beauty, fact and force. 
Uncongenial words must not be yoked 
together; their companionship should be 
governed by their inherent predominant 
significances. Besides, there are the 
equally insistent shades, subtleties of 
humor, colors, tones and fractions of 
tones which must be considered. Further- 
more, a natural, easy, judicious allitera- 
tion is essential to the noblest style; 
and it is also essential to remember, that 
the least bit too much of the alliterative 
effect is worlds too much — it sounds 
foolish — it is affectation — it is not art, 
not style; and it robs words of their soul. 

6 81 



POETRY 



POETRY 



AND 

its "threadbare" THEMES 



OPINION varies as to what con- 
stitutes poetry — otherwise less 
rubbish would desecrate the 
name; but difference of opinion shrinks 
as people become learned and thoughtful. 
The tendency of culture is always toward 
intellectual socialism. The spirit of 
enlightenment moves away from in- 
tellectual anarchy. This blessed fact 
consecrates our labor as we struggle to 
acquire knowledge; it makes wisdom 
holy. No one works and suffers to 
become wise for himself, only. In 
most cases it is not worth while. The 
individual is little at best — mankind is 
everything. Our gratitude for benefits 

85 



Poetry 

received from the laborers of the past is a 
debt we must pay to the future. 

Poetry today is a bank account de- 
posited to our credit by our forefathers. 
The every-day things of the dim past are 
the rarely poetic things of the present. 
The poetry of the future will excel that 
of today, as the things of today out- 
rank those of the yester years. 

To the thoughtful, this is plain enough. 
If all the learned folk were thoughtful, 
there would be scarcely any difference in 
opinion, but as they are not, the learned 
very often express themselves without 
deliberation. In such cases, the act is an 
explosion rather than an opinion. It is a 
kind of mishap which may be likened to 
the powder-flash from the pan. Thus, 
in the realm of chance, they discharge a 
fact only once out of many times; and 
even then the law of probability inter- 
venes between the muzzle and the mark 
in the majority of instances. 

86 



Poetry 

This may be the reason why some 
worthy writers affirm that poetry is 
merely a question of manner, not matter, 
so to speak. In other words, that any- 
thing might be coined into poetry, if the 
manner be apt, the handling skilful and 
the form true. Others seem to think 
that poetry is determined almost solely 
by matter, and that manner is incidental. 

Between these extreme view-points, 
there is a broad common premise on 
which to stand; but from either extreme, 
argument is vain. As well say: 

"What is mind ? No matter. 
What is matter ? Never mind." 

How a sensible person can deny that 
poetry depends upon both form and 
theme, is a perpetual wonder to me. I 
can much mpre readily understand those 
who inquire why poets so much concern 
themselves with "threadbare" themes. 
It is asked, Why do they not sing of the 

87 



Poetry 

new — of the marvellous results of science, 
of the wondrous laws of physics, lately 
discovered— of the beautiful functions 
of physiology, the mysterious phenomena 
of energy, the amazing works of invention, 
the intricacy of mechanics, the pathos of 
sociology, and of the servitude and sput- 
tering pranks of confined lightning? 
Why do not the poets sing of these instead 
of the human passions, the wonders and 
beauties of nature, the charm of ethics, 
the glories of war, and the phases of 
religion sifted through the stained win- 
dows of old cathedrals ? It is sagely 
prophesied that some time some great 
poet will. 

A little reflection discovers the im- 
possibility of such a task at present. 
The impossible should not be expected 
even from a poet. All poetic themes 
are, in a sense, organic. They must be 
mellowed by time and have the enchant- 
ment of association. They must have 

88 



Poetry 

the softened perspective which beauty 
chisels from the years. New concep- 
tions and new phases of conception rarely 
lend themselves to poetry. Nothing can 
be poetic that has not ripened in the heart 
and brain of man. Countless ages of 
subconscious impression, perhaps, are 
essential. The flowing spring, the falling 
snow, the sailing ship, the moody humors 
of the sea, love and passion, the fireside 
of home, the pathos of parting and joy 
of reunion, birth and death, the hopes of 
the heart, the dreams of the soul, the 
deep wonder of the skies, the wailing of 
the winds, strife and war, towering peak 
and angry torrent, the silent plains reach- 
ing out to embrace the sky, the painted 
fields and sombre wood, day and night, 
beauty fainting in the arms of tragedy, 
the furies of mid-winter and the warm 
heart of June — these are the poetic themes 
that marry poetic form. 

So it is with words. It is well under- 



Poetry 

stood that certain words are poetic while 
certain others, equally good, are not. 
The poetic words are the old words, 
many of them archaic. Newly coined 
words, however sound and fit, seldom 
serve the needs of poetic thought. This 
shows how words grow into the very 
soul of man. The symbols of poetry are 
never the mushrooms of speech. 

When, in the course of the ages, man 
shall winnow from the results of science 
the beautiful and good which are to 
abide with him — when the nomenclature 
of physics shall be as old and dear as the 
words home and love now are — when the 
phenomena of energy and the functions 
of physiology shall inspire Art with 
feeling — when machines shall bear affec- 
tionate names, and sociology shall be 
reduced to the simplest laws of sense — 
when new applications of force shall 
have transported us through the air for 
a thousand years, and thus have become 

90 



Poetry 

old — when this world shall be looked 
upon as the Fatherland, and other worlds 
shall be visited as summer- and winter- 
resorts, then may poets weave these 
things into song ever warm on the Muse's 
lips: — but not until then. 

Poets who have already made the 
attempt have failed, or succeeded in- 
differently. Whitman has written much 
that is incomparable poetry today; but 
much, also, that he has written will not 
be poetry until the centuries shall have 
chastened his themes. And it may be 
that the centuries will wear much of his 
work away. Still, enough will remain, I 
hope, to keep the wreath forever green 
upon his memory. 

The steam-engine is barely approach- 
ing the poetic zone; by the time it reaches 
it, maybe, it will be no more. But the 
old spinning-wheel, the post-chaise and 
the "fiery charger" are in the torrid zone 
of song. No poet sings of the threshing 

91 



Poetry 

machine, nor of the splendid reaper that 
does the work of many hands; but of the 
beating flails he sings; and the sickle 
and scythe hang on the apple-limbs in 
the perpetual summer of his dreams. 
So with the tall clock, the old tower, the 
ivied wall, the ruined cathedral, the 
crumbling chateau! these seem best in 
song. 

Love and all the common phases of 
love — the beauty and tears of devotion — 
the terrors of war — the fascination of the 
passions — these have become part of 
man by association and development 
through the years : they are poetic matter. 
The same is true concerning the eternal 
question of the stars — the modest beauty 
of trailing arbutus — the apologetic grace 
of drooping violets — the poems of the 
wood where streams of melody flow from 
straining throats of happy birds, and 
laughing brooks steal through silent beds 
of moss; these are the "threadbare" 

92 



Poetry 

themes of poetry. Such as these must 
concern the poet until the new shall 
entwine, as a vine, the far-coming years. 



93 



SYNTAX 



SYNTAX 

AND 
A WORD WITH PROFESSOR LOUNSBURY 

The doctrine of the joining of words and sen- 
tences, or syntax, treats of the laws of speech. 

Maetzner. 

SYNTAX is to the writer as technique 
is to the painter. A great painter 
is the master — not the slave — of his 
technique. He is not bound by any set of 
rules. And yet, his greatest freedom lies 
in a careful observance of the natural 
principles which govern his particular 
art. The greater knowledge he has of 
these principles, the greater is his facility 
for the producing of a desired effect. 
Whatever may be his style, proportionately 
as he lacks this precise knowledge, his 
work must lack the elements of a master- 

7 97 



Syntax 

piece, and to that extent will show weak- 
ness or self-uncontrol. No great painter 
has ever achieved his success through a 
violation of these natural laws. If he has 
conformed to their requirements uncon- 
sciously, he has nevertheless conformed 
to them essentially, if not unconditionally. 
His technique — the mastery of his tools — 
depends upon his knowledge of natural 
phenomena which are related to the 
evolution of his effect in art. In this, 
feeling and imagination play no part — 
since it is only after he has become 
master of his technique, that he can deal 
effectively with those higher requisites of 
artistic expression and creation. 

Words and phrases to the writer are as 
media and pigments to the painter. It 
is absurd to say that Art has nothing to 
do with Science. A painter, for instance, 
who violates the laws of chemistry, who 
is regardless of the principles of optics, 
who is heedless of the laws of harmony 



98 



Syntax 

in color, line, form and balance, and 
who disregards the differences between 
surface-light and body-light in his picture, 
can never hope to produce a work of art. 
So-called artistic temperament — feeling 
and imagination — "cuts a poor figure" 
when it conflicts with natural law. 

With the writer it is precisely the 
same. The art of language-expression 
cannot attain its highest aim regardless 
of syntax. And yet, the great writer 
does not trouble himself about the rules 
of grammar; — children and pedants do 
that. He does not stop in the midst of 
his thought to square some wry relations 
which may, perchance, exist between 
some fussy old verb and its stubborn 
upstart-subject or object. He is more 
concerned with the clear, strong and 
beautiful expression of an idea, than 
with some moot point of grammar. All 
this is because the great writer is master 
of his vocation. He observes the natural 

99 



Syntax 

harmonies of his tongue — the harmony 
between thought and phrase and word. 
He encompasses the unity of purpose 
with the unity of effect. He considers 
the real and not the fancied significances 
of words. He regards the logic of posi- 
tion and the need of balance. He is so 
familiar with the natural principles which 
govern the art of language-expression, 
that grammars and rhetorical guide-books 
encumber rather than help. He knows 
perfectly well, that grammars are more 
or less correct formulations or rules based 
upon natural laws ; but, as he understands 
the laws themselves, and their relations to 
expression, he has no need of the rules. 

So much for the master — the genius — 
the great writer! Unfortunately, all men 
are not masters of expression. Many 
writers are not geniuses in this one respect, 
at least; and yet, they are capable of 
worthy and useful work. If such writers 

find immediate help and stimulation to- 

100 



Syntax 

ward higher effort, in books devoted to 
the science underlying correct expression, 
and to its overlying art, then such books 
are justified in spite of the awful con- 
tempt of such mighty men as Professor 
Lounsbury. 

There are thousands of literary workers 
in this world who, unlike Mr. Lounsbury 
and a few others, have not "been born, so 
to speak, in the purple." Yet there is 
no reason why they should not acquire 
by effort some small part, at least, of the 
knowledge which Mr. Lounsbury received 
at his "purple" birth; for only in this 
way, perhaps, could the future Louns- 
bury s possess this useful acquisition. 
It is reasonably certain, that not even 
Mr. Lounsbury would object to this 
plebeian method of the acquiring of 
knowledge, if it were meekly suggested 
to him that what is plebeian in one 
generation may be quite aristocratic in 
another. 

101 



Syntax 

Mr. Lounsbury thinks that the gram- 
marian should be "taught to know his 
place." That is perfectly right. A gram- 
marian out of his place is a great nuis- 
ance — almost as much so as the self- 
appointed arbiter who would "school- 
master" a tongue, and who would foist 
upon a patient people the fusty vagaries 
of a musty class-room. A grammarian 
who does not know his place, may be very 
decidedly disconcerting.; and it is known 
that he has been, on occasion, rather over- 
bearing; besides, now and then, one is 
gifted with an impish sense of the ridic- 
ulous. At all events, a mere grammarian 
has no business to point out any of the 
many glaring syntactical mistakes of a 
Professor "born in the purple" — and has 
less right to laugh at scholastic pretense 
too weak to "make good," or at scholastic 
inheritance too slovenly to exercise care. 
Certainly, Professor Lounsbury is not the 

only great or little man who has made 

102 



Syntax 

mistakes. He deserves, therefore, neither 
more ridicule nor less censure than the 
others. But a mistake is a mistake, no 
matter by whom made. 

There is, possibly, no greater error in 
fact than this — to quote more of Mr. 
Lounsbury's own words: 

"Take, for example, Latin. If a 
word or construction occurs in Cicero, 
the question of its propriety is settled at 
once. No one thinks of disputing the 
authority of so great a master of the 
speech. 

"The same principle applies to English. 
It follows therefore that when we find 
an expression of any sort [italics not his] 
employed by a writer of the first rank, 
the assumption must always be that this 
particular expression is proper." 

Mr. Cicero was a great authority by 
virtue of his genius and by common con- 

103 



Syntax 

sent. No one doubts that. But neither 
does any sane person believe for a mo- 
ment that Cicero was incapable of error. 
With all due reverence and respect for his 
greatness, yet, be it said, he has never 
been endowed with pontifical authority 
over letters. He was not infallible. The 
literary Pope has not yet been born. An 
error by Cicero was no less an error 
than one by Lounsbury, however gro- 
tesque the comparison. In neither case 
should an error be exalted or justified. 
In science and art, as in other fields of 
intellectual labor, there is no such thing 
as lese majeste. Those of the "purple" 
birth — of genius and undoubted author- 
ity — are just as much mistaken when 
they make linguistic errors, as are the 
humblest born of their human fellows. 
A mistake by the greatest of men is no 
more sacred than one made by the least. 
And an error in speech should no more 
be emulated and condoned in the greatest 



104 



Syntax 

writer, or in the greatest authority in 
linguistics, than in the speech of the pro- 
verbial hod-carrier. For, to quote again 
from Professor Lounsbury: "There are 
matters in regard to which no height of 
genius can supply the place of a little 
accurate knowledge. When a great writer 
steps forth to enlighten us upon a ques- 
tion of language, for the proper consider- 
ation of which an historical investigation 
is essential, he has gone out of the prov- 
ince where he is a recognized authority 
and placed himself in a situation in which 
in nine cases out of ten his words will 
not carry so much weight as do those of 
the dullest specialist who has made a 
study of the origin and history of the 
form or construction under discussion." 
Professor Lounsbury unnecessarily con- 
cerns himself, it seems to me, with "rules 
which are constantly [meaning contin- 
ually*] dangled before the eyes of inex- 

* See The Worth of Words. 
105 



Syntax 

perienced writers." The rule of common- 
sense, quite as much as of grammar, 
which prohibits the comparative use of 
the superlative adjective, is disdainfully 
put aside. He has buttressed his con- 
tentions by quoting the mistakes of 
Cicero. Call something a "rule of gram- 
mar' ' and the Professor becomes im- 
patient. He exhibits errors in grammar 
as gems of perfectness if only they be 
found in the works of the wise. Because 
Shakspere wrote, "Silence is the per- 
fectest herald of joy," he concludes that 
"perfectest" is an adjective form justified 
by "good usage." It matters not to him 
that what the great Poet meant and 
virtually said was merely, the herald of 
joy NEAREST perfect. It is only fair 
to presume that Shakspere, although not 
of the cloth professorial, knew that if a 
thing were perfect it could not be more 
so, and that some things were nearer 
perfect than others. The Professor also 

106 



Syntax 

quotes Bacon and others to prove that an 
error if found in the writings of great 
authors is not necessarily an error, but 
rather an example of "good usage" to be 
"constantly dangled before the eyes of 
inexperienced writers." He quotes with 
joy Spenser's lines: 

"Against two foes of so exceeding might 
The least of which was match for any knight." 

Mr. Lounsbury searches through the 
writings of the renowned for such ex- 
amples and holds them to be marks of 
"good usage" not only, but insists that 
they are also protests against the forms of 
grammar. He overlooks the fact that the 
genius of the Masters arrogates to itself 
various forms of "poetic license" for the 
sake of meter or strength or diction, rather 
than as protests against the "rules of 
grammar." 



107 



INTENSIVES 



INTENSIVES 

WITHOUT the use of intensives, 
speech would still be intelligible. 
Old-maidish men could still spin 
their pithless yarns in yawning clubs and 
timorous professors could still maintain 
a social status in a community of pious 
gossips. Persons who mistake a puni- 
ness of language for the politeness of 
good breeding, would be able to pass 
through life with little shock to their 
sensitive souls. But language is for the 
virile quite as much as it is for the moral 
and intellectual eunuchs. Pious knaves 
and meeklings, if unable to withstand the 
sabre-strokes of speech, must step aside 
or fall. Language, first of all, should 

serve the strong, the robust in character 

m 



Intensives 

and the vigorous of soul. To do this it 
must be rich. If it fail to express deep 
feeling, it is poor. 

Intensives belong to the class of sturdy 
words. They batter heads better than 
clubs. They are more explosive than 
powder. They are excellent daggers with 
which to pierce a villain's breast. Like 
strong, sharp pins, they serve to transfix 
the little beetles of our kind. They 
stimulate the lethargic, clench meaning 
into the mind of man, and even fashion 
gilded masks of flattery with which to 
please the vanity of some women. Like 
snell arrows, these words pierce the heart 
and quicken its beat. Even profanity, 
so called, is not only useful at times, but 
highly moral as well. It may be invigor- 
ating and wholesome. It may be defi- 
nite, and it often clears the atmosphere. 
Curses have thundered down the ages. 
They are, on occasion, as eloquent as 
prayer — and just about as helpful. Pro- 

112 



Intensives 

fanity, quite as much as a sermon, may 
stand for righteousness. 

When Abraham Lincoln was a young 
man he visited a slave-market in New 
Orleans. "A young colored girl was 
on the block. Lincoln heard the brutal 
words of the auctioneer — the savage re- 
marks of the bidders. The scene filled 
his soul with indignation and horror. 
Turning to his companions, he said, 
* Boys, if I ever get a chance to hit slavery, 
by God, Til hit it hard!" If Lincoln's 
use of emphasis in this case was profane, 
then love, the holiest word of all our 
speech, is wicked. 

For comparison, let us substitute for 
Lincoln's righteous words, this weak and 
wretched phrase: Boys, if I should ever 
have the opportunity to smite slavery I 
shall do so with great force. Very gentle- 
manly, and equally insipid! 

When Farragut was told of the tor- 
pedoes in the way of his ships, if he had 

8 113 



Intensives . 

said : Never mind the torpedoes, go ahead! 
that would have been great. What he 
did say was: "Damn the torpedoes, go 
ahead!" and that was brave — sublime. 

Of course, the opposite extreme of 
under-statement may be used as 
effectively by a genius as the most in- 
tense expletive. Admiral Dewey at the 
battle of Manila affords us a good ex- 
ample of this: "You may fire when you 
are ready, Gridley." There was the sup- 
pressed force of a volcano in that phrase. 
It was splendid, ominous. It was the 
calm before the blast. 

A wise man was in a position of vast 
power. He had a keen sense of humor 
and was renowned for his courage. He 
disliked the grotesque and abhorred 
shams. He stood for a great deal him- 
self that was strong, honorable and just; 
and he believed that everybody and 
everything should likewise stand for some- 
thing sensible, at least, or give way. 

114 



Intensives 

He caused the motto: "In God we trust" 
to be left off our newly minted coins. 
He knew, as others know, that during 
the downward months of the year 1907 
that motto on our currency was less ap- 
propriate and far more sacrilegious than 
would be the famous Kentucky phrase 
which ends in "highwater." 

Surely, if it is advisable for a virtuous 
nation to iterate its trust in God on its 
commercial counters, it might as well 
repeat on them the assurances of its 
stand for the "square deal" — its honest 
intent, and pledge to redeem its promises, 
"In spite of hell and highwater," as they 
say in Kentucky. Seriously, a motto of 
any kind on a coin is absurd. It re- 
peats itself so often in the pockets of the 
few, and so seldom and tersely in the 
pockets of the many, that it loses all 
meaning. "In God we trust" on coins 
to the rich is ridiculous — it is a joke. 
To the poor it is pathetic — it is like the 

115 



Intensives 

far-away look in the dying eyes of a 
starving man — it means too much and 
too little. One trouble is, that too much 
reiteration smacks of weakness. It is 
like the ceaseless "Katy did" and "Katy 
didn't." It soon becomes meaningless 
and foolish. The over-use of stimulants 
is depressing. Too many intensives, or 
intensives too often repeated, are sure to 
destroy their effect. 

We all applaud the hero who, under 
desperate odds and overwhelming con- 
ditions, is called upon to surrender and 
stoutly replies: "Damned if I will!" 
And we all despise the weakling who, 
on every slight occasion, makes use of the 
same phrase. 

Strong words of the wise and great 
become as milk and water in the mouths 
of the weak and foolish — an imitation — a 
worthless counterfeit. The stress of the 
moment and the strong man — the hour 
and the hero — plant curses among the 

116 



Intensives 

stars — sow intensives over the heavens 
to be reflected in all human speech. 
The same words without the force back 
of them, and without the occasion fit to 
give them birth, are disgusting vulgar- 
isms as nauseous as they are senseless. 
Expletives properly used are never cheap- 
ened; the great occasion is not suffi- 
ciently recurrent, nor are strong men 
sufficiently numerous to weaken their 
effect, or destroy their force. 

The sturdiest character that my child- 
hood knew, was wont to exclaim when 
surprised by some hideous abomination, 
or vexed into unusual anger: "Hell and 
scissors!" And I am sure that I never 
heard anything more eloquent, and I 
think that I never heard anything more 
holy in human speech. 

For an expletive to remain forceful, it 
must take on the local coloring of a strong 
personality, which somehow gives it birth- 
right. It must seem to be original — it 

117 



Intensives 

must seem to be warranted, or it must 
not be often repeated. 

Human speech abounds in a variety 
of expletives. Some are used only for 
emphasis and others for euphemism. 
Some express energy, assurance; others 
are cumulative in effect — some express 
clearness and seek to make a truth seem 
doubly true, or " assurance doubly sure." 
Many are unjustifiable locutions and 
redundant. There is the expletive usage 
of synergetic words which multiply the 
stress of an idea. Examples are not 
lacking. We have in daily use, "might 
and main," "honor bright," "as sure 
as heaven," "many a time and oft," 
"hue and cry," "receipt and acknow- 
ledge," "acknowledge and confess," "be- 
queath and convey," "well and good," 
"true as gospel," and "safe and sane." 

On the occasion of Henry W. Grady's 
address before the Boston Merchants' 
Association, he "became the lion of the 

118 



Intensives 

hour, feted by fashion and showered 
with attentions from the Hub's most 
conservative social circle. At an even- 
ing reception given to him at one of the 
most exclusive homes in aristocratic 
Beacon Street, when the editor was mak- 
ing his departing devoir the hostess 
pleaded: 'Now, Mr. Grady, please do 
say something original. My other guests 
have all said, 'I've had a most delightful 
evening,' or 'I've enjoyed myself exceed- 
ingly,' or something equally trite and 
stupid. I expect something better from 
you.' Grady placed his hand over his 
heart in cavalier fashion and with the 
most courtly bow of which he was capable 
he declared with great earnestness, 'Ma- 
dam, I have had one hell of a time.' 
Not even a suggestion of surprise dis- 
turbed the repose of her patrician features 
as his hostess promptly replied in tones 
of perfect breeding, 'Mr. Grady, I am 
damned glad of it.'" 

119 



Intensives 

Finally, Poetry is the rich field of in- 
tensives. Shakspere grew the finest and 
most varied crop in the history of man- 
kind. 



1*0 



VARIATIONS IN WORD- 
MEANINGS 



VARIATIONS IN WORD- 
MEANINGS 

EVERY word is born with a mean- 
ing; its determination is precise; it 
is the symbol of a definite idea 
— the shadow of concrete substance, in 
one case — the memory of the shadow, in 
another. 

A nascent word may be called a 
cameo of thought carved from sound. 
For a time it is fixed. If the word is the 
name of a concrete thing, it represents 
to the senses some striking attribute, or 
supposed attributes, of the thing. If, on 
the other hand, the word is an abstract 
term, it conveys the impression of some 
property or quality common to two or 
more things. 



Variations in Word-meanings 

It follows that concrete terms precede 
the abstract, and that both in the begin- 
ning are of precise and inflexible definition. 
This rigidity of definition is maintained 
so long as the word stimulates the con- 
ception to one degree of intensity and 
to one scope. But as human knowledge 
is the subject of change, which may be 
likened to growth, the attributes of a 
thing are revealed more and more, until 
the number of their possible relations 
comes to an end. And since conception 
fluctuates as a tide, so to say, it follows 
that the original meaning of a word 
speedily becomes inadequate on the one 
hand, and shifted on the other. 

Moreover, as knowledge of a thing in- 
creases, its supposed attributes usually 
decrease, while its relatively few real 
qualities become more apparent and seem 
to increase in number. The original 
meaning of many words, therefore, soon 
becomes modified ; in some instances, its 

124 



Variations in Word-meanings 

falsity bears it down — in others, its use- 
lessness kills it; but more often, the word 
withdraws itself from its former connota- 
tion to embrace a wider meaning, or else 
changes its meaning altogether. 

Thus we see in a great number of 
words the process of change in mean- 
ing, which can be followed clearly step 
by step. For example: Damp originally 
meant wet, humid, moist; and it still has 
that meaning; but it has also acquired 
additional meaning by the process of 
association, because the condition of 
dampness is so often accompanied with 
chilliness. Hence the idea of cold is 
associated with the word damp. From 
this added meaning came the metaphor: 
" dampening one's ardor" — that is to 
say, cooling it; and so on to the word 
damper, that which shuts off the draft of 
a stove, which bears no reference what- 
ever to the original meaning of the word 
damp. 

125 



Variations in Word-meanings 

Dry, in a similar manner, has become 
modified in meaning when applied to 
certain wines. 

Street once meant "a paved way with 
or without houses"; it means at present 
a road, paved or not, bordered with 
houses. 

Impertinent primarily indicated that 
which was irrelevant, but gradually came 
to mean intrusive, insolent, meddlesome 
and unmannerly. 

Gentleman at first signified a man born 
in a certain social class or rank; after a 
while it meant a man whose happy sur- 
roundings were such as usually belonged 
to one in that station of life. Later the 
term implied, to the vulgar at least, a man 
who lived without labor; again, it was 
applied to a man whose conduct and out- 
ward appearance generally were supposed 
to belong to one born and bred in high 

126 



Variations in Word-meanings 

social position; and at last, the word 
gentleman means nothing, or at best, 
it is synonymous with the word snob. 

Loyalty is another word that has gone 
through various vicissitudes of meaning: 
from "fair, open dealing and fidelity to 
engagements," it came to signify merely 
fidelity to the throne, and lastly, to em- 
brace faithfulness in friendship. So, too, 
have the words only and alone been con- 
fused; and salt, a term formerly given to 
sodium chloride only, is no longer ap- 
plied to that substance alone. 

Oil is another notable example. This 
word at one time meant merely olive oil; 
but now it is applied to any number of 
substances having some superficial quality 
in common with it. 

Pagan. Pagus was the name of a 
village or settlement; hence, paganus 
meant a villager or semi-countryman; 

127 



Variations in Word-meanings 

but when Christianity spread over the 
Roman Empire, the inhabitants of the 
cities, quite naturally, were the first to 
be converted, while the great mass of 
the country people, or pagans, adhered 
to their ancient divinities. Thus this 
association between pagan and a believer 
in "heathen divinities, " altered the mean- 
ing of the word until it became a reproach, 
and at last an epithet meaning merely a 
heathen. 

We find, in like manner, many words 
which were formerly used to express 
general characteristics, restricted to spe- 
cial things. Arsenic is one of these. This 
word was derived from a Greek term 
"which was an ancient epithet applied 
to those natural substances which pos- 
sessed strong and acrimonious properties." 
So, as orpiment (arsenious sulphide) 
was known as a powerful poison, its 
dominant ingredient was called arsenic. 

128 



Variations in Word-meanings 

Verbena was once a general term given 
to all plants which, being used in sacri- 
ficial rites, were held to be sacred. But 
from this general application, the term 
was restricted to the one plant, of which 
there are over eighty varieties. At last 
verbena came to be the vulgar name of 
one particular plant. Likewise, the word 
vitriol was formerly applied to any trans- 
parent, crystalline body (vitrum, glass). 

Opium is another word which pri- 
marily meant any juice; but which has 
become restricted to the juice of the 
poppy. 

Elaterium, according to Hippocrates, 
signified "various internal applications, 
especially purgatives of a violent and 
drastic nature." Now the word is ap- 
plied exclusively to the dried sediment 
from the juice of the squirting cucumber. 

Ecclesia meant assembly; bishop, over- 

9 129 



Variations in Word-meanings 

seer; deacon, administrator; sacrament, 
vow of allegiance; evangelium, good 
tidings. 

Physician (naturalist) came to mean 
"a healer of diseases, because, until a 
comparatively late period, medical prac- 
tisers were the only naturalists"; just 
as clerc {clericus) signified a scholar; 
since, at a certain period, members of the 
clergy were about the only scholars; 
hence, clerc naturally came to designate 
an ecclesiastic. Such illustrations as 
these could be multiplied indefinitely. 

We find diversity to be a powerful 
element in causing variations in word- 
meanings. The common experience of 
mankind proves that no two persons are 
constituted alike. Individual conception 
varies from a trifling shade to great and 
complex differences. No two experiences 
are precisely the same. No two view- 

130 



Variations in Word-meanings 

points are exactly equal. The various 
qualities of a thing never impress two 
persons alike for any considerable time. 
The relative importance of one charac- 
teristic differs from another according 
to the mind impressed. The receptive 
faculty, unconsciously, is strongly selec- 
tive of impressions; and the different 
attributes of an object receive different 
groupings by each individual. So that 
no one term is defined for any length 
of time exactly the same in the concep- 
tion of two or more persons; and 
while the definitive differences may at 
first be little more than mere shades of 
impress, these shades deepen by habit, 
environment and experience until they 
become more and more pronounced 
through generations of men. 

When we add to this the influence of 
diversity in natural capability, grades of 
intellect and culture, it is not difficult to 
see clearly why word-meanings change, 

131 



Variations in Word-meanings 

and why they must continue to change 
through an immense period of time. 
For language must serve the users of 
language; and so long as the overwhelm- 
ing majority of language-users sees the 
properties of things vaguely through dim 
light and shifting shadow — and while it 
conceives even less of the origin of these 
properties — the meanings of words must 
necessarily accommodate themselves to 
usage. 

Not until definite knowledge becomes 
more general and conception less fluc- 
tuating, will it be possible to form perfect 
definitions of words which shall have 
lasting and fixed values. Theory must 
conform to subject-matter, and science 
must sweep away the debris. 

And lastly, be it said that degeneration 
of the English tongue is aided materially 
by a large and growing number of un- 
educated writers, together with a horde 
of " professionals," who succeed admir- 

132 



Variations in Word-meanings 

ably in disrupting our speech. Very 
many of these folk are woefully ignorant 
of the instrument they misuse. By ex- 
ample they legitimize, as it were, countless 
vulgarisms. Through suggestion they 
sow broadcast, into the minds of the un- 
lettered, vicious corruptions of speech, 
depriving English of many valuable bear- 
ers of clear thought. 

The greater the tendency shown by 
word-meanings to change and shift, the 
stronger is the reason why every intelli- 
gent linguist should strive to use terms 
of unmistakable meaning. Every word 
should express its meaning perfectly, 
and every fact should be precisely paral- 
leled by a word; otherwise language 
cannot serve its full purpose. 

Not that the daily tongue of a people 
should be fixed, as is the case, in a way, 
with the descriptive technical language 
of this or that science; but the termin- 
ology should fit the facts of daily rele- 

133 



Variations in Word-meanings 

vance. For the exact nomenclature of 
science is no more important than a 
clear general terminology. 



134 



STYLE 



STYLE 

STYLE is more easily recognized than 
defined. It is the subtlest element of 
expression, and may be termed the 
purely personal in art. This is affirmed 
by the French, who say : "The style is the 
man"; and by Herbert Spencer, who 
declares it to be organic. 

As relating to letters, style dwells 
rather more in the manner of using 
words than in the words themselves. 
It is convenient to speak of it as the soul 
of thought — the personeity of ideas — the 
picture of mental process — the atmos- 
phere of feeling — the tongue of sentiment. 
It is fitly described, in general, as strong 
or weak, smooth or rough, light or heavy, 
spirited or nervous, beautiful and fine, 
or ugly and coarse. It is essentially 

137 



Style 

complex; for it is composed of many 
qualities. 

A very important element of good 
style is fitness; and it requires an artist 
to understand the difficulty in altogether 
suiting the style to the subject. The 
propriety of association is not doubted; 
but few persons are able to encompass 
it, since the difficulties of adjustment are 
hard to overcome. It is plain enough 
that a light, jocular style would ill be- 
come a treatise on mathematics; nor 
would clearness alone, which is so es- 
sential in a dissertation on science, lend 
itself to romance, which requires color 
and adornment to heighten effects. A 
similar truth applies to architecture: The 
\ temple is not built like the cottage, nor 
is the palace like the jail; however like 
may be the resemblance of the inmates 
of both. So the style of a comic story 
should differ from that of a funeral ora- 
tion, although it does not always do so. 

138 



Style 

A presidental address intended to in- 
fluence the votes of a labor organization 
might, on occasion, smack a little of 
Gaelic, but it should never savor too 
much of a sermon; that is to say, it 
should not be too humorous, considering 
who is the natural butt of the joke. 
Comedy should not borrow boldness from 
the ode, pathos from tragedy, nor meta- 
phor from the epic. Language varies ac- 
cording to circumstance. The language 
of science is not easily comprehended by 
the average person. The same applies 
to art and to other specialized divisions 
of effort. In science, a clear, strong style 
is appropriate; but in artistic literature 
there should be agreeable qualities which 
charm the reader and hold his attention 
as much by the beauty of expression as 
by the beauty of thought. Thus a striv- 
ing after subtle shades and delicate effects 
is not only legitimate, but essential, on 
occasion, to good style. In plain words, 

139 



Style 

every kind of execution demands a style 
to fit it. 

Besides fitness, clearness and beauty 
supported by strength are necessary to 
good style. The first purpose of style, 
as of language, should be clearness of 
expression; and almost equally with 
this come strength and beauty. The 
neglect of any one of these qualities mars 
the style; for apart from being necessary, 
they overlap each other. For example, 
beauty is never wholly lacking in clearly 
expressed thought. 

It is said that style cannot be taught. 
This, I think, is partly a mistake. Not 
that one may be taught to be master of 
style; but that his style may be vastly 
improved by culture, is true without 
doubt. An uncultivated mind may pro- 
duce an admirable style. From the same 
mind, under the influence of culture, 
would issue an elegant style. The per- 
sonal element is largely important; and 

140 



Style 

the essentials of good style are many 
— several are innate: the faculty of 
choosing apt words, of evolving fresh 
metaphor, of combining variety with 
beauty and clearness, and the ability to 
season all with euphony. 

In one person, the quality of uncon- 
scious imitation may produce a better 
style than much cultivation; while the 
same may not be at all true of another. 
But generally speaking, nothing else is 
so helpful in this respect as broad culture, 
which is opposed to special culture. By 
this is meant, that merely the studying 
of grammar and rhetoric will do little in 
itself for the building up of a worthy 
style. More than one subject must be 
studied, to the end that from a well-stored 
brain, used to independent thought, comes 
the unconscious formation of style. The 
things we do unconsciously are the things 
we do best. 

While style concerns itself more with 

141 



Style 

manner than with the matter of words, 
these are, nevertheless, important. A 
perfect understanding of individual words 
is necessary. Words bear delicate re- 
lations to one another. They possess 
that which is similar to color, to tones 
and half-tones; they produce the high- 
lights and shadows of sound. They 
must be thrown into well-constructed sen- 
tences which are logical, which contain 
the hint of rhythm and the faint spirit 
of alliteration. A sentence, moreover, 
should never leave a reader in doubt. 
Sentences should vary in length, while 
the perspective of the whole should have 
artistic trappings of speech in sufficient 
amount to hold the attention, but not 
enough to obscure the meaning. In a 
word, the value of thought aids the effect 
of style, just as style heightens the effect 
of thought. 

In these days purity of language is 
decried by many English writers. The 

142 



Style 

use of idiomatic words, and what might 
be termed native construction, are not so 
much insisted upon as formerly. This 
is not surprising in such a language as 
ours, which makes large drafts upon 
foreign languages and has made them for 
so long a time. Changes are inevitable 
in a living language, and this is not an 
unreasonable change. There are those 
who plead for even a freer introduction 
of foreign words and phrases. What- 
ever one may think of the propriety of 
restricting this introduction, the effort to 
do so will fail. It may be looking a 
long way ahead to prophesy that at some 
time but one language will be spoken by 
all the people of earth; and yet no 
prophecy could be based on more certain 
grounds. The signs are already well- 
marked, indicating that eventually only 
one language will be spoken, and that 
tongue will be an amalgamated tongue. 
The process of amalgamation has been 

143 



Style 

going on from time immemorial; and a 
vast deal of progress is apparent. But 
the increasing facilities for intercourse 
between all the inhabitants of the globe 
assures to the process of amalgamation of 
tongues a greater rapidity in the coming 
centuries than there has been through 
those of the past. At the present rate 
at which our language is spreading, it 
is not hazardous to assume that English 
will be the basis upon which all other 
languages will meet to form one. The 
probability is increased almost to a 
certainty, when we stop to note how well 
English is adapted to this amalgamat- 
ing process. Foreign words, like foreign 
blood, soon become part of us. The 
tendency is to appropriate such as suit 
our purposes best. There is no stemming 
the tide in this direction — the best that 
can be done is to exercise a reasonable 
conservatism in the choice of foreign 
words. The good should be accepted 

144 



Style 

and made over into English with little 
ado; and their aptness should govern 
their selection. That is to say, words 
should parallel material facts in prose 
composition. In poetry a greater free- 
dom is allowable, not so much in the 
employment of new words, for they rarely 
lend themselves to poetic themes, nor yet 
in foreign words which are stiff upon 
early acquaintance; but rather in the 
absolute and pictorial parts of speech, 
many of which are archaic. 

In prose, good style avoids the unusual 
and excludes verboseness. First, for the 
sake of clearness; and second, to avoid 
the appearance of stiltedness. The sug- 
gestion of vanity breaks the continuity of 
thought. Mannerisms arrest attention. 
An undue use of foreign words suggests a 
poverty of language, which is offensive 
and antagonistic to wholesome style. 

Good words should be chosen, and a 
word cannot be good that is not precise. 

10 145 



Style 

Good style avoids words of loose meaning. 
It also abhors superfluities, incongruities, 
duplications of meaning and defects of 
construction. It has long been noticeable 
that the writers who think clearly and 
with precision are those who use words 
of definite meaning and appropriate bear- 
ing. Accuracy in thinking seems to be 
necessary to clear writing. Words are 
faultily used which fail to express fully 
the ideas intended. Mere similarity in 
meaning will not do; neither should they 
express more than the intent of the 
utterer. Precision, therefore, is essential 
to good style. Looseness of expression is 
as bad as ill-fitting garments. More- 
over, the words should never suggest 
a wavering apprehension. Good style 
needs the strength that comes from a 
fixedness of purpose and unswering dic- 
tion — a certain directness which is paral- 
lel to a noble attribute of moral conduct. 
Furthermore, that a style may be free 

146 



Style 

from blemish, it must not concern itself 
with too much at one time: it must avoid 
diffuseness. Conception becomes clouded 
when the mental process is forced to 
deal with two or more things at the same 
time. Ideas should be treated singly 
and in sequence; otherwise they are not 
seen clearly, and no power of multiplied 
words is sufficient to render them so. 
It is a safe rule to follow: the fewer the 
words used to express a purpose, the 
better the style. 

Nothing else is so important to good 
style as good judgment, for this must 
determine, after all, every nicety within 
its scope. In some instances, over-pre- 
cision is offensive because it smacks of 
conceit, and depreciates the reader's 
understanding. There are some subjects 
that do not lend themselves to precise treat- 
ment; they demand broad touches which 
suggest rather than point out. In such 
cases the greatest possible care should 

147 



Style 

be exercised in the choice of words; 
otherwise the result will be vulgar on the 
one hand, or not understandable on the 
other. The greatest nicety is required 
in suggesting, where telling would be 
common and inartistic. 

Many writers are too much given to a 
parade of words. Their ideas are lost 
in gaudy colors, or lessened by pomp. 
There is no excuse for saying, for instance, 
The Great General, The Master Poet, 
The Mighty Genius and Judge of Art; 
when meaning, respectively, Napoleon, 
Shakspere, and Aristotle, unless it is 
clearly understood to whom these titles 
refer. 

Again, the injudicious employment of 
synonyms is confusing; but skilfully used, 
they serve a high purpose in art. With 
a full knowledge of their differences in 
shades of meaning, they may be used aa 
a painter applies his colors. One word 
supplies the defect of another. Where 

148 



Style 

one is weak another is strong; and where 
one is dim another adds lustre. Con- 
trasts are struck — tone is maintained, 
and lo ! cathedral chimes pour forth their 
harmony. Each word then adds its worth 
to the perfect whole. The picture is 
complete. But if the synonymous words 
are used carelessly, the picture is marred 
— it becomes a daub. 

In the world of letters there are 
wide and delicate differences in style, 
just as there are in individuals who 
write. Yet there is a standard of cor- 
rect style, as there is of morals. And 
while morals may be said to depend 
somewhat on geographical location and 
the "spirit of the times" in one century as 
differing from the morals of other places 
and epochs, yet through the ages there is 
a standard of ethics which, in the main, 
differs not among the peoples of earth, 
especially in periods not enormously 
separated. So we find the underlying 

149 



Style 

principles in literature paralleled by cer- 
tain characteristics of individuals. And 
as environment affects the style of one, 
it also sways that of the other. 

Besides this, the quality of imitation 
which affects in a small way the style 
of a people from time to time, is owing 
to a fondness to seem rather than a 
desire to be. This accounts for the 
grotesque. Again, there are tricks of 
style just as there are mannerisms of 
speech or action; but the artist and 
thinker do not need to have recourse to 
these. Such things are blemishes to a 
noble style. 

What Mr. Blair calls "copiousness" 
of style was much in vogue a few cen- 
turies back. At present, English writers 
have swung toward the opposite ex- 
treme, and instead of a copious style, 
affect rather a lean or stingy one. The 
copious style, if not overdone, lends itself 
admirably to the expression of grace and 

150 



Style 

beauty; but as all things become weari- 
some when pressed to the extreme, this, 
too, may readily lead us astray. 

Affectation is deadly to a beautiful 
style — nothing fits it better than sin- 
cerity. The importance of style can 
hardly be overrated. For its influence 
is almost as marked as the thought 
it conveys. Above all, style must not 
antagonize the spirit of a tongue. Eng- 
lish lends itself to copiousness and French 
to the epigrammatic. In one, grace is 
the most noticeable quality, just as the 
scintillating quality inheres in the other. 

To sum up: 

All good work depends upon style, 
which may be simple or elevated. The 
ideas must be accurate, the language 
should be approximately pure, and there 
should be propriety of expression. He- 
roic language ill becomes the neatherd. 
Indeed, the greatest defect in style is 
the sinning against genius, rather than 

151 



Style 

the breaking of rules. And it should 
be remembered that style is weak when 
unrelieved by ingenuity of expression; 
that flowery style is agreeable rather 
than profound; that deficiency of soul 
is deadly to style, and that sterile ideas 
render it cold. 



> S 



152 



DISTINCTIONS IN WORD- 
MEANINGS 



DISTINCTIONS IN WORD- 
MEANINGS 

MENTAL phenomena could not ex- 
ist without physical phenomena. 
There is no real chasm between 
"spiritual" and physical things; what 
seems to be a mysterious gulf is the 
fog of ignorance, for the most part, of 
distinction in word-meanings. 

By some mental process, not yet de- 
fined, many words have come into being 
which serve, apparently, the sole purpose 
of confusion. These sprites of Babel 
have no counterparts in fact, sense or 
reason. They are not justified by any 
characteristic of the physical world. 
They belong essentially to the realm 
of phantoms. They may be called, also, 
the fungi of disorder, or the children 

155 



Distinctions in Word-meanings 

of phantasy; or, even, the spume- waifs 
of crazy psychic currents, which obscure 
the thoughts of men with the froth- words 
of unreality. 

The statement will bear scrutiny, I 
think, that every legitimate word is 
born of parallel physical and mental 
phenomena. For a word to be useful 
it must mean something. The more defi- 
nite its meaning, the more useful it 
is. Every physical phenomenon should 
be accurately reflected in a corresponding 
mental phenomenon. A word is the 
most available mirror that man has 
found to reflect upon the mind the 
image of a fact. There are distinc- 
tions between facts. There should be 
corresponding distinctions between the 
words that connote the facts. Define a 
word. Is it justified by fact? That is 
the real test. Language is a loose con- 
trivance of man; and words are, in too 
many instances, unfortunate; they fail to 

156 



Distinctions in Word-meanings 

show the distinctions that they should rep- 
resent. It will be one of the most im- 
portant tasks of the future, to select for 
use the words which are fit, by their in- 
herent power, to portray definite facts, and 
to weed out such as are not. It is most 
likely that this will be done by the slow 
process of devolution and regeneration in 
the evolution of language. 

Physical facts have their distinctions; 
and words, which are parallel facts, 
must conform to these distinctions. With- 
out this, language, in which thought 
naturally finds its fullest and most logi- 
cal expression, must fail to perform 
perfectly its clear purpose. Usage and 
custom are blind and diffusive where 
the ultimate object of language is 
considered. Every distinction between 
words is unjustified, unless there is back 
of it a distinction in fact. Superfluous 
words should be ejected, and the size of 
dictionaries, as a consequence, lessened. 

157 



Distinctions in Word-meanings 

Just as there is somewhat similar to 
parallelism between mental process and 
physical process, so there is parallelism 
between the physical organism and its 
environment; or, in the words of Pro- 
fessor Simon E. Patten: "between eco- 
nomics and biology .... The dis- 
tinctions in organisms run parallel to 
those in the environment, and those of 
the one may be expressed in terms 
of the other." There is no reason why 
the ingenuity of man should fail in 
the making of his words to fit their 
distinctions as accurately as need be. 
The method of induction alone is in- 
sufficient to do this; for it will be seen 
that language is governed by primary 
laws, even as is life. Purely inductive 
studies must fail to produce a suitable 
vocabulary. What real distinctions do 
many psychologic terms indicate ? Their 
very vagueness makes it almost im- 
possible to write a clear paragraph on a 

158 



Distinctions in Word-meanings 

subject in psychology. And why is this ? 
Because the physiologic distinctions are 
not tallied by the psychologic distinc- 
tions of words. To quote again from 
Dr. Patten: "Every mental fact has 
some physical expression. The test, 
therefore, of the reality of a psychic 
distinction is its correspondence to a 
physical difference, and this test should 
be applied in defining terms." 

Many examples might be cited show- 
ing the confusion of word-meanings, or 
lack of proper distinction in their em- 
ployment. A few will do: 

It is a matter of well nigh daily occur- 
rence to hear the words faculty, talent, 
capacity and ability confused. The dis- 
tinctions in the meanings of these words 
are sometimes neglected by persons of 
education. Faculty (facultas, facilitas, 
facio, to do) implies a natural gift of 
a certain kind to a certain end; and 

159 



Distinctions in Word-meanings 

should be used in a restricted sense, 
as more or less common to all: as, 
one's faculties — that is to say, functions 
of sense. Talent (talentum) is also a 
natural gift which varies greatly among 
different persons — some having a talent 
for music, others for painting and what 
not. Ability (habilitas) signifies, in gen- 
eral, the power to do, and "always 
supposes something able to be done," 
while capacity (capacitas) imports "the 
abstract quality of being able to receive 
or hold." So are the words able, 
capable, capacious too often used care- 
lessly. Two persons may be able to 
read, and one of the two capable of 
reading Greek; while the third may 
have a more capacious mind than either 
of the other two and be unable to do 
that which the others do easily. Act 
(actum), action (actio) and deed are not 
synonyms. Act signifies the power ex- 
erted which renders the thing done; 

160 



Distinctions in Word-meanings 

action, doing; deed, simply the work 
performed. An act may be public or 
private, collective or individual. A deed 
is always personal — while "an action 
may consist of more acts than one," 
embracing more or less complex causes 
and consequences. These are the dis- 
tinctions which no careful linguist over- 
looks. 

Again, to aggravate, irritate, provoke, 
exasperate, tantalize: To aggravate is 
so frequently misused that the infini- 
tive is in danger of losing its meaning. 
Aggravate (aggravatus) means to add 
to; irritate (irritatus), to excite, to annoy, 
to thwart; provoke (provoco), "to chal- 
lenge or defy," to awaken anger; exas- 
perate (exasperatus) , to roughen the feel- 
ings to an unusual degree of anger; 
tantalize (Tantalus), to raise hopes in 
order to frustrate them. Aim, object, 
end: Aim (aestimo) is the mental intent; 
object (objectus) inheres in the thing; 

11 161 



Distinctions in Word-meanings 

while "the end is that which follows 
or terminates any course or proceeding." 
All signifies the whole number of units. 
"All is collective; every is singular or 
individual; each is distributive." Mor- 
tal, deadly, fatal: The bite of a serpent 
may be deadly; the thrust of a sword, 
mortal; a step in the wrong direction, 
fatal. To have and to possess indicate 
distinctive differences. To have implies 
indefinite ownership: to have in mind, 
within reach, in control. To possess 
is to have definite ownership of: a 
cashier, for instance, may have much 
money at his disposal, while the same 
money is possessed by his employer. 



162 



SOME FURTHER DISTINCTIONS 



SOME FURTHER DISTINCTIONS 

Notice, to mention. It is of common, 
almost of daily, occurrence to see mention 
and notice used indifferently as synony- 
mous words. Whatever may be the plea 
for expansion and elasticity of our tongue, 
certainly no one would urge its con- 
fusion as a means of growth. Language, 
as everything else, grows in accordance 
with principle or law. We express our 
ideas best, when we make use of the 
distinctions which exist between words 
more or less synonymous. Notice and 
mention " imply the act of calling things 
to another person's mind," and in that 
sense only are they synonymous. If a 
thing is mentioned, it is brought to one's 
attention in no uncertain manner; but 
if it is noticed merely, the act may have 

165 



Some Further Distinctions 

been incidental, and is usually brought 
to mind indirectly. 

Illusion and delusion. There are very 
few of us who have not been, at some 
time or another, deluded; that is to 
say, allured by deceit to deviate from 
right into error. There is nothing im- 
aginary about that. On the other hand, 
those of us who get our ideas of the 
". . . form divine" through poetry and 
the robes and waddings of modern fashion, 
awake on some calm, gray dawn to 
the fact that we have suffered from an 
illusion — often optical. In all illusions 
the imagination plays a leading role. 
Thomson said: 

"While the fond soul, 
Wrapt in gray visions of unreal bliss, 
Still paints the illusive form." 

Puerile. One need not be a great 
Latinist to know that puer means boy; 

166 



Some Further Distinctions 

and that puerile, therefore, means simply 
boyish, and is not synonymous either 
with youthful or juvenile. 

Writer, author: There is a world 
of difference between the two. In this 
age it is not necessary for an author 
to be a writer. He may talk into a 
recording phonograph, or better still, 
if he be not married, into the shell- 
like ear of a pretty type-writist. Our 

daily, weekly and monthly publications 
convince us with overwhelming prima 
facie evidence that the majority of writers 
are in no sense authors. Crabb says 
that, "Poets and historians are properly 
termed authors rather than writers." But 
Mr. Crabb was deficient in the sense 
of humor. 

Word and term. Let us not be dog- 
matic. Good authority has it that word 
and term are not necessarily synonymous. 

167 



Some Further Distinctions 

I am sorry if that is true. Word and 
term should mean the same thing. Every 
word of a non-barbaric tongue should 
have its boundary and specific significa- 
tion. Usage should limit the meaning of a 
word — and generally does — as accurately 
as science fixes a term. But it is as well 
to have a change of words occasionally as 
it is to have a change of clothes. 

Whole, entire, complete. A whole- 
hearted person is one, properly speaking, 
from whose heart nothing has been taken. 
There are many such in this world. 
The heart, as it were, may have been 
broken into fragments; but so long as 
all the parts remain together on the 
premises, and unconfiscated, the indi- 
vidual may still aver, with whatever 
arrogance he please, that his heart is 
whole. But let some demure divorcee 
prove a common-law marriage, and the 
honorable Court will hold that the heart 

168 



Some Further Distinctions 

is no longer entire, since it is an axiom 
in law that in union there is division; 
and that, thereafter, it requires two 
to make one complete. 

Way, manner, method, mode, course, 
means. 

"Strait is the gate and narrow is the way." 

— Mat. vii. 14. 

The ways of Heaven are dark and intricate. 

— Addison. 

This is not very encouraging to the 
sufferers in this world who look Heaven- 
ward for joy. He who travels a strange 
way would do well to resort to a good 
manner and a safe method; and the 
mode of travel may require close and 
continuous attention. Course and means 
are used mostly to designate the way 
of moral conduct. 

All impediments in fancy's course 
Are motives of more fancy. 

— Shakspere. 
169 



Some Further Distinctions 

Yet, by your gracious patience, 
I will a round unvarnished tale deliver 
Of my whole course of love. 

—Ibid. 
All your sophisters cannot produce anything 
better adapted to preserve a rational and manly 
freedom than the course that we have pursued. 
— Burke. 

How modern is this: 

Get money; still get money, boy, 
No matter by what means. 

— Ben Jonson. 

And this: 

Get place and wealth, — if possible, with grace; 
If not, by any means get wealth and place. , 

— Pope. 

The most wonderful things are brought about 
in many instances by means the most absurd and 
ridiculous. — Burke. 

Strenuous. Theodore Roosevelt, whose 
name gains nothing by a title, gave 
this word a vogue which it never had 
before. It is an old theory, that the 
mind instinctively uses words which re- 

170 



Some Further Distinctions 

fleet very subtly its own characteristics. 
It does not require vast experience in 
one to recognize a mollycoddle by his 
speech. What a veritable stench are 
the words of an unclean mind! How 
crystal-pure and sweet is the language 
of wisdom and righteousness! How 
plainly, as a paradigm, is this 

A Dude's Description of Life 

"Life's just a hollow bubble, don't yeh know — 
Just a painted piece of trouble, don't yeh know — 
You come to earth to cry, you grow older and you 

sigh; 
Older still and then you die, don't yeh know. 

"It's all a horrid mix, don't yeh know, 
Business, love and politics, don't yeh know; 
Clubs and parties, cliques and sets, 
Fashions, follies, cigarettes, don't yeh know. 

"So you worry through the day, don't yeh know, 

In a sort of kind of way, don't yeh know — 

You are hungry, you are fed; some few things are 

done and said — 
You are tired — go to bed — don't yeh know. 

171 



Some Further Distinctions 

"Society is dress, don't yeh know,' 

And a source of much distress, don't yeh know: 

To determine what to wear, to make your face look 

fair, 
And how to part your hair, don't yeh know. 

"Love! ah yes; you meet a girl, don't yeh know; 
And you get in such a whirl, don't yeh know — 
You get down on the floor and implore and 

adore — 
And it's all a beastly bore, don't yeh know." 

Surely, this is not the language of 
the truculent spirit who can give the 
lie direct, when need be; and who can 
read the heart of the grizzly through 
the rift of the rifle's sight. The stren- 
uous paladin — the sturdy trouncer, wield- 
ing the "big stick" alike over a turbid 
Senate and the bald heads of thieving 
railway manipulators — would scorn such 
rhyming jargon. Strenuous are the words 
he would use, and well, because they 
are wedded to an undaunted, untamed 
spirit. 

172 



Some Further Distinctions 

We find strenuous used too often, 
however, by "undesirable citizens" in 
the sense of bold. This is a mistake. 
Bold implies only half the meaning. 
" Strenuous supporters of any opinion 
are always strongly convinced of the 
truth of that which they support, and 
warmly impressed with a sense of its 
importance" (Crabb). Hence a differ- 
ence of opinion seems to them, rightly 
enough, "a lie," and righteously "un- 
desirable." 

Tale, story. There are more tales in 
currency than there are stories; and 
probably will be as long as the inventive 
instinct remains strong in man. A story 
may not be true — a tale never is. 

And often did beguile her of her tears, 
When I did speak of some distressful stroke 
That my youth suffered. My story being done, 
She gave me for my pains a world of sighs. 

— Shakspere. 
173 



Some Further Distinctions 

Let not the heavens hear these tell-tale women 
Rail on the Lord's anointed. 

—Ibid. 

My conscience hath a thousand several tongues, 
And every tongue brings in a several tale, 
And every tale condemns me for a villain. 

— Ibid. 

Herodotus is present at the Olympic games, 
and, like an old woman to children, recites his 
narratives, or rather tales to the assembled Greeks. 
— Voltaire, philosophic dictionary. 

Spurt, spout. There is the same dif- 
ference in meaning between these words 
as there is between a perpetual candidate 
spouting tiresome platitudes, and a "fire- 
alarm" politician spurting nonsense. By 
comparison we welcome the spurter, 
because the spouter never gives us a 
respite. 

To speak, say, converse, talk, tell, 
discourse. 

Ships at sea may speak to one another 
far beyond the range of voice. If the 
talk of some persons could only be 

174 



Some Further Distinctions 

pushed back beyond the horizon of 
hearing the world would be happier. 
Thunder and lightning speak to the 
savage — the old woman talks to us from 
the chimney-corner — the creditor says 
we are in his debt — the articulation of 
lovers is sweet converse — and for dry, 
heavy discourse one should listen to a pro- 
fessor when he "school-masters" English. 
As a people, we are proud of our dis- 
tinguished individuals who can tell lies 
without so much as batting an eyelid. 

The distinctions existing betwixt these 
words are not remarkably subtle. 

Words that weep and tears that speak. 

— Cowley. 

The first duty of a man is to speak, that is his 
chief business in this world ; and talk, which is the 
harmonious speech of two or more, is by far the 
most accessible of pleasures. — R. L. Stevenson. 

First say to yourself what you would be; and 
then do what you have to do. — Epictetus. 

175 



Some Further Distinctions 

Tell it not in Gath, publish it not in the streets 
of Askelon. — 2 Sam. i. 20. 

With thee conversing I forget all time, 
All seasons, and their change, — all please alike. 

— Milton. 

A gentleman, nurse, that loves to hear himself 
talk, and will speak more in a minute than he will 
stand to in a month. — Shakspere. 

Miss not the discourse of the elders if you are 
troubled with insomnia. 



Abominable, detestable and execrable 
arise in a climax describing that which 
is bad. The first expresses strong aver- 
sion; the second, "hatred and revulsion"; 
the third, "indignation and horror." In 
the denouncing of enemies, justice de- 
mands that these words should never 
be used as synonyms. The list of 
condemnatory adjectives is not large 
enough as it is to suit the requirements 
of individuals, on occasion. 

176 



Some Further Distinctions 

The newspapers! Sir, they are the most vil- 
lainous, licentious, abominable, infernal! — Not that 
I ever read them! No, I make it a rule never 
to look into a newspaper. — Richard Brinsley 
Sheridan. 

"The rantankerous Senator is one of the most 
detestable hypocrites in public life." 
( In private conversation.) 

Whence and what art thou, execrable shape ? 
— Shade of Milton to the Shadow of "Our 
Chauncey." 

Many of these examples taken at ran- 
dom from Crabb's English Synonymes 
are scarcely more striking than hundreds 
of others. If they serve to emphasize 
the contention that a careful distinction 
between the meanings of more or less 
synonymous English words is essential 
to clear expression, they do well. 

Note: See "the worth of words" (Hinds, 
Noble and Eldredge, New York) for further 
reference — words arranged alphabetically. 



177 



THE ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE 



\ 



THE ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE 

WHO has not speculated on the 
origin of language; and who has 
said the final word on the sub- 
ject ? The exact solution of the question 
seems to be a long way off. 

A few gentlemen have written sensibly 
on the origin of language; a good many 
more have needlessly exploited their ig- 
norance in discussing the matter; while 
some reverential souls have thought to 
please God by ascribing to Him the 
invention of human speech. 

This might be called the ripe apple 
theory; that is to say, God put language 
into man's breath as He might have 
put a ripe apple into his mouth. Hap- 
pily, the day of the ripe apple theory 
is past. There are other theories as 

181 



The Origin of Language 

to the origin of speech; some of them 
are not now seriously considered; some 
others are reasonable in parts; but 
the only one that seems wholly probable 
may be said to be the evolutionary 
theory. 

We have all heard of the "bow-wow," 
"ding-dong," " pooh-pooh" theories, as 
well as of the highly intellectual "goo- 
goo" theory, invented by Professors 
Greenough and Kittredge. Let us hope 
that it scarcely required their combined 
intellects to bring it forth. 

With all due respect to the authors 
of the various theories, but especially 
to the reverential souls who have tried 
so ingeniously to flatter God, presum- 
ably for the good of others, let us con- 
sider the theory of the evolutionists, 
who, in their search after truth, have 
no "axes to grind" either with gods 
or men. 

It has long been known that all 

182 



The Origin of Language 

gregarious animals possess the means 
of communicating with one another. 
Their language, in one instance, may 
be that merely of touch, as is the case 
with ants. These remarkable little be- 
ings converse by means of their antennae. 

It is a curious fact that most animals 
communicate with one another through 
vocal sounds. They express their emo- 
tions of love, grief, joy, desire, anger, 
fright, etc., by intonation. In many in- 
stances their language is intelligible to 
human beings. We clearly distinguish 
between the murmuring, plaintive, nurs- 
ing-sounds of the mother caring for 
her young, and the cries of alarm and 
distress. 

I have a very little dog, of the Japanese 
spaniel family, that has a considerable 
range of speech. A plaintive little spiral 
wail calls me out into the hall to put 
on the light, so that her ladyship may 
see to ascend the stairs; a sharp, short 

183 



The Origin of Language 

"barklet" says: "Open the door!"; a 
prolonged, rolling bark expresses dis- 
approval (usually) of a visitor; a low, 
ratchet growl is a warning not to disturb 
her when she is comfortable; a sort 
of yelping growl tells a stranger to keep 
away from her bed, her biscuit or any- 
thing else that may be hers; a flute- 
like sound is a plea; a sharp, quick, 
strong bark is a sound of alarm; a soft 
guttural, almost purring, sound tells me 
as plainly as a woman's words that 
she loves me, and is very happy 
with me for the moment. For grief she 
has tears and lugubrious howls. She 
produces many other sounds and in- 
tonations which are not only expressive, 
but, on occasion, quite eloquent. She 
is, indeed, highly accomplished in primi- 
tive speech. 

Professor Garner, who has been study- 
ing African and other monkeys, with 
the aid of an interesting young woman, 

184 



The Origin of Language 

reports from his jungle-cage in the wilds 
of Africa that he has actually discovered 
about thirty well-defined substantives in 
daily use among monkeys. Monkey- talk 
has long interested mankind; but the 
discovery of monkey-nouns is new, and 
all the credit attached to it rightly be- 
longs to Professor Garner. 

At all events it is not unreasonable 
to assume that the language of the 
lower forms of animals evolved as the 
animals themselves developed. 

Our early progenitors spoke a com- 
bined language of gesticulation and vocal 
intonation. As their minds became more 
and more active and their affections 
more developed, they found amusement 
in gesturing, murmuring and babbling 
to one another. Then hard-times came 
to them, even as they fall upon us; 
but in their day hard-times were rather 
more dependent upon geological, than 
upon financial upheavals, as in our 

185 



The Origin of Language 

time. They became conscious of a short- 
age in food-supply — and as food de- 
creased their enemies increased. They 
were menaced from all sides, and a com- 
mon danger wrought the golden bonds of 
closer union. It was then that Socialism 
made its first notable step. They needed 
the protection of one another, and had 
sense enough to avail themselves of 
it, since neither graft nor jails had yet 
appeared among them. Combination be- 
came the principal instinct of self-preser- 
vation; and combination depended upon 
their language, the growth of which was 
enormously stimulated thereby. With 
relative rapidity language passed from 
one stage of development to another. 
From the stage of intonation, in which 
ideas paralleled a chromatic scale, it 
readily passed to the stage of imitation. 
This was a great step toward progress. 
Mental activity increased; social affec- 
tions developed; necessity, an impellent 



186 



The Origin of Language 

shadow, was ever at their shoulder — or, 
to be more exact, at their stomach. 
They began to inform one another of 
danger by imitative sounds, gestures and 
grimaces. A low growl, a gesture indi- 
cative of direction, a savage grimace, 
said plainly enough: "Look out for 
an enemy — a wild beast over there!" 
'To imitate water, they bubbled with 
their mouths; they grubbed with their 
hands and pretended to eat, to show 
that they had discovered roots." The 
utility of this rude speech was not lost 
on them, as later developments clearly 
show. They saw not only utility, but 
found pleasure in language. This con- 
sciousness was the dawn of the third 
stage of language, which was more "con- 
ventional or artificial." Substantives 
were invented to fit certain objects: 
certain nouns were given certain sounds. 
The invention of the adjective and verb 
was only a step away; "and, lastly, 

187 



The Origin of Language 

words which had at first been used 
for physical objects were applied to 
the nomenclature of ideas." 

Combination had proved an excellent 
weapon of defense; it was also found 
equally good for offense. Without lan- 
guage there could be no combination. 
"Language, therefore, may be considered 
the first weapon of our species, and 
was improved, as all weapons would 
be, by that long, never-ceasing war, 
the battle of existence." 

In the second stage of the development 
of language — the imitative — we discover 
the starting-point of art. The young 
of nearly all animals learn by imitation. 
Much is accredited to instinct in animals, 
which should properly be accredited to 
their instinct of imitation. The indi- 
viduals of many species imitate one 
another. 'With monkeys this propen- 
sity becomes a mania." With man the 
instinct of imitation is prodigiously de- 

188 



The Origin of Language 

veloped. Persons living together in long, 
intimate association, reflect the charac- 
teristics of one another to a noticeable 
degree. This is well shown both in the 
conjugal felicity of the fireside, and 
in the cat-like squabbles of the divorce 
court. Imitation, "when adroitly man- 
aged," becomes an efficient means of edu- 
cation. The savage tries to imitate the 
things that are new to him. When he 
sees a strange object, he is seized with 
two impulses — curiosity and imitation. 
He draws rough pictures of ships on 
the sands of the beach; he scratches 
outlines of animals on rocks, or draws 
them on barks and skins. This is the 
birth of art, of sculpture, of picture 
writing, and of the alphabet itself. 

Some time during the career of our 
primeval ancestors, poetry and music 
were one. Words were chanted; con- 
versation was rhythmical; music was a 
language. The science of music has been 

189 



The Origin of Language 

discovered since, and the art of music 
wonderfully developed; but music still 
retains some of the essentials of a lan- 
guage, although it ceased to be speech 
when prose took the place of poetry. 
At that time poetry and music became, 
equally with language, separate arts. 
Previous to that time, "the bard was 
a minstrel, the minstrel was a bard." 
With the invention of writing, the art 
of music was separated from that of 
poetry. One man no longer "accom- 
panied himself upon the harp." The 
art of music divided itself into vocal 
and instrumental. Yet music was a prim- 
itive language, and vocal music today 
bears a striking relation to the language 
of speech. 

Nothing can be much plainer than 
that musical sounds and gestures — both 
of which are largely ornamental today — 
"are relics of the primeval language." 
Travelers — those who travel really to 

190 



The Origin of Language 

see things outside the dusty, monotonous 
ways which the fools of fashion take 
and follow — are aware that many peas- 
ants and savages still chant their talk. 
This is especially evident when they 
are stirred by deep emotion: when sub- 
conscious nature harks back to primitive 
characteristics. 

Once in mid-ocean I heard a Polish 
peasant woman chant her grief; her 
babe had been thrown overboard by 
a lunatic. The poor mother sat wrapt 
in her despair singing her grief, mean- 
while swaying her body rhythmically. 
On the floor beside her stood the empty 
little shoes that her babe had worn 
only a few hours before. She scarcely 
removed her eyes from the pathetic 
shoes. I shall never forget how that 
savage, poignant song pierced my heart 
and made it primitive for the moment: 
how it aroused within me a storm of 
savage sorrow. 

191 



The Origin of Language 

I was at luncheon when the ship's 
mighty engines ceased to throb; an 
uncanny hush fell upon us — a thrill, 
rather than words, apprised us that a child 
was overboard; gaiety died — laughter 
froze on the lips — the ship circled in 
rough seas — every eye scanned the dark 
green, graceful, feline, hateful waves. 
Within an hour the grim ship picked up 
her course — the throb of the engines' 
heart resumed — the gay life of the 
passengers went on as before — a little 
child was alone with the deep — a mother's 
wail pierced the gray mists, and her 
chanting grief was all that was left to 
her of her babe. 

In that hour's quick review passed 
an epitome of life and history. In the 
mother's grief a primeval language flow- 
ered again, that the bitter fruit of despair 
might fill her heart — and the agony 
of that hour left its scar upon more 
than one soul. 

192 



The Origin of Language 

Articulate speech has grown into many 
rich and glowing languages, wherein 
all shades of thought have found appro- 
priate voice and term; abstract ideas 
and delicate emotions blossom and give 
forth their perfume and beauty to our 
souls. Just so has the inarticulate speech 
of music grown into a wide and varied 
language of sound, wherein poems are 
sculptured from the air, as tender melodies 
float around us; good angels from a 
fairy land soothe all the hurts of day, 
while alluring elves weave for our brain 
the soft webs of trance-like dreams. 

Music makes the doors of the mind 
to open on a new world where all is 
vast and dim; unutterably grand ideas 
pass before us in organized procession; 
gigantic shadows throw immeasurable 
silhouettes against the sky; wondrous 
hues, drawn from the infra-spectrum, 
sweep and float before us — only to vanish 
as strangely as they came, leaving at last 

13 193 



The Origin of Language 

scarcely the shadow of the dream behind. 
Again, the notes are soft and low, ar- 
ranged, assorted and combined into 
the plaintive primal chords that strike 
all reason dumb — the senses swim in 
seas of happy languor— "the mind re- 
turns and nestles to the heart" — the 
eyes are filled with tears as the past 
takes form again, and a voluptuous 
sadness steals upon the soul, "sweet 
as the sorrow of romantic youth" when 
first it bathes in tears. 

Somewhere in the dawn-deep wilds 
of Nature, music was born of passion; 
it was the speech of love; the wail of 
grief; the sound of joy. It is perhaps 
the only element of language which may 
be called divine. Within its magic circle 
dwell the sigh and sob, the moan of pain 
and "caressing murmur of maternal love"; 
the plaints of supplication; the calls 
of challenge; the cries of triumph; the 
songs of mated love, and the dirges for 

194 



The Origin of Language 

the dead — all there find voice and echo 
of being's elusive self. 

We do not know, and yet it may be 
found that immortality exists within the 
range of music's magic realm. Think 
of the happiest moment of your life — 
the most ecstatic moment. Perhaps you 
were listening to a symphony of Bee- 
thoven. You were literally " carried away 
from yourself": a vulgar idiom of much 
truth. You were transported; you for- 
got self — forgot all the relations which 
made you an individual. There was 
no individual memory — no past — no fu- 
ture; all was a sweet sublimation of 
the sense of well-being; environment 
vanished — self disappeared. If there be 
immortality of soul, perhaps it is of 
this nature. 

It is possible that far away through 
the future eons of man's development, 
the soul may turn again to this strange 
and subtle tongue, as the only worthy 



195 



The Origin of Language 

means of converse and expression. As 
man rises with his aspirations to higher 
and ever nobler planes of being, it may 
be that music shall be his sole speech 
and poetry all his thought. 

Perhaps the soul may turn upon high crest 

And beat an ebb-tide dream through ways of 
past; 
Perchance the goal lies hidden in the breast 

Of some dim day; and heart find hope at last 
By turning back to ancient dawn, when first 

The budding fancy felt the dear, warm breath 
Of waking love, ere creed and crime had curst 

The sons of men with hate and death. 

Toward the origin of things we can 
trace a little way backward. We think 
that we can follow life downward to 
the early compounds of cyanogen, born 
amid the flames of inconceivable fury 
and undenotable heat. Language we 
can trace back to snarling beasts and 
crawling things. Science, we believe, 
was evolved from the early habit of 
seeking food — a habit which developed 

196 



The Origin of Language 

the instinct of curiosity, which in turn 
unfolded genius. Art was born of the 
spirit, and the spirit was imitation and 
imitation was the necessity of learning 
to eat. And music arose from primeval 
speech, and the speech was the voice 
of love, and the love was sexual attrac- 
tion, and back of the sexual attraction 
was the vague but strong instinct o£ 
propagation before the separation of the 
sexes, when the Androgynous divinity 
ruled the world and both male and 
female were one. Beyond this we do 
not go; and yet, up to this point, we 
have traveled only an infinitesimal part 
of the way as it leads ever backward. 

"Why was it so ordered that reason 
should be born of refrigeration, and that 
a piece of white-hot Star should cool 
into a habitable world, and then be 
sunned into an intellectual salon, as 
the earth will some day be? All that 
we are doing, and all that we can do, 

197 



The Origin of Language 

is to investigate secondary laws; but 
from these investigations will proceed 
discoveries by which human nature will 
be elevated, purified, and finally trans- 
formed." And language, the fairest blos- 
som of the soul, shall not have bloomed 
in vain. 



198 



SOME OLD CELTIC FRIENDS 



SOME OLD CELTIC FRIENDS 

Celtic is a word that covers a group 
of allied tongues known as Irish, Gaelic, 
Welsh, Manx, Breton and, formerly, 
Cornish. This group has contributed 
not a few useful words to English — 
words, many of them, in every-day use. 
For the most part, they are friends 
of our childhood — sturdy friends that 
stick to us through life. Some of the 
most common of these, with their deriva- 
tion and cognate forms, follow in 
alphabetical order, and will be found 
of interest to many persons whose knowl- 
edge of English goes beyond the merely 
utilitarian usage. 

Babe has meant an infant for a long 
time, and has the respectable reputation 

201 



Some Old Celtic Friends 

of never having meant anything else. 
It was babe and bob in M. E., of which 
the full form was baban. Its derivation 
was from Welsh, Gaelic, Irish and Corn- 
ish. Early in its career this sacred 
word warmed the heart of many tribes 
and clans. It is spread out now over 
a great part of earth, and has grown 
so dear to the people that we find it 
in the mouths of politicians calling for 
more. From the lap of the mother to 
the mouth of the "statesman," hungry 
for votes, is no great way, but tremen- 
dously important. 

In Manx we find the cognate words 
bob and baban, meaning a babe or child. 
The diminutive was maban, from mdb, 
a son — hence our macs, since mdb and 
mac are modified forms of maqvi, early 
Welsh for son. 

Bad, evil and wicked men and things 
are older than our era. M. E. had 
both bad and badde, and Chaucer his 

202 



Some Old Celtic Friends 

badder, meaning worse, which, however, 
is not from the same root. 

Bald originally was used in the sense 
of (1) shining, (2) white, and applied 
to streaks on the foreheads of animals 
nominally inferior to man, as, for example, 
the horse. Bal, white streak, etc., was 
Welsh, and was cognate with bali and 
the Breton bal. Bald came from Gaelic 
and Irish. As the men of Britain began 
to show hairless signs on their pates, 
presumably after the introduction of the 
Roman ballet, we read that they were 
referred to as balled. Chaucer sang: 
"His head was balled, and schon as 
eny glas." M. E. gives us both balled 
and ballid, dissyllables. 

Bard. The original meaning of this 
word was, most likely, speaker. Poets 
were not always the meek and timorous 
beings known to us in our degenerate 
day. At an early time they were loud 
and lusty seers not loath to speak. We 

203 



Some Old Celtic Friends 

find bardd in Welsh, bard in Irish and 
Gaelic, bardh in Cornish, and in Breton, 
barz. 

Barrow has long been both verb and 
substantive. Originally the noun meant 
a burial mound, a hillock. M. E. gave 
us berg, a hill; Cornish, Welsh and 
Breton bm, a top; and Gaelic barpa, 
a conical heap of stones, a cairn, a bar- 
row. Barrack, heaped up. Barrow, the 
verb, from beran, to bear, carry — hence 
an open, placid form of legitimate robbery, 
since a thing barrowed is usually carried 
away and buried forever. The noun is 
also used in the sense of a vehicle: a 
wheel barrow. "A. S. borh, a pledge, 
is derived from the stem of borg-en, pp. of 
beorgan, to protect." 

Basket. Original meaning unaltered. 
Basket, M. E. (Chaucer) : derived from 
Welsh basged. Cognates: Cornish, bas- 
ced; Gaelic, bascaid. 

Bat. "He went on a bat" — a debauch. 

204 



Some Old Celtic Friends 

"He's batty," in the sense of being not 
quite sane, are slang phrases in which 
the use of the word bat is unwarranted. 
Carlyle's version of Nat Lee's "hiero- 
glyphic bat" is just about as sensible: 

"Methinks I see a hieroglyphic bat 
Skim o'er the zenith in a slipshod hat; 
And to shed infants' blood, with horrid strides, 
A damned potato on a whirlwind rides." 

The word means (1) a short club 
or cudgel. M. E. batte. It was derived 
from Irish and Gaelic bat and bata, 
a staff, cudgel; Breton batarag, a club; 
(2) a mammal with wings — corrupted 
from M. E. bakke. 

Bauble. The history of this word tells 
us that the family-tree of fools is, at 
least, not an upstartish growth. It also 
hints darkly at the genealogy of jewelers. 
The word came from the Celtic, and 
meant (1) a fool's mace; (2) (derived 
from the French via Italian meaning) 

205 



Some Old Celtic Friends 

a trifle, a plaything, a whimwam, a 
gewgaw, and so forth. Certainly nothing 
to be encouraged. 

Bicker probably had a feminine origin, 
so to speak, in Welsh from bier a. Women 
bickered, pecked and skirmished even in 
that ancient and honorable tribe. Bicra y 
figuratively, to peck at, a petty dispute. 

Block has done good service.^ From 
the Gaelic ploc meaning a round mass, 
a large clod, a bludgeon with a large 
head — to block, a stump of a tree, it 
finally came to mean a large piece of 
wood. In Irish, ploc meant a plug, 
a bung — from blocan, sl little block. 
M. E. had blok, which came from the 
Welsh plock, a block. Dutch blok; Swed- 
ish block; Danish blok. 

In modern times it has acquired ad- 
ditional meanings. We speak of a block 
meaning a city "square." In that sense 
it is perhaps preferable to "square." 
Naturally, it came to mean an auctioneer's 

206 



Some Old Celtic Friends 

stand, and has been compounded into 
blockhead, which is a very descriptive 
word when applied figuratively to many 
a human being who is, unfortunately, 
about as sentient and sensible as "a 
bludgeon with a large head." 

Bludgeon is thought to be derived 
from the Irish blocan. That the Irish 
clan should have given us that word 
is fitting enough. An Irishman without 
a bludgeon is in undress uniform; with it, 
he is perfectly accoutred for war, and at 
ease in polite society. The average New 
York policeman is a living hark-back. 
The Gaelic plocan, a wooden hammer, 
beetle, a mallet, is a cognate word. 

Bog, a piece of soft ground, a quagmire, 
came from the Irish bogach, a morass, 
or softish (place). The Gaelic bogan, a 
quagmire, was a cognate term. 

Bother is a comparatively modern word 
which was probably first used by the 
inimitable Swift: "My head you bother." 

207 



Some Old Celtic Friends 

Mr. Swift uses pother in the same poem, 
in the sense of continuous excitement: 

"With every lady in the land 
Soft Strephon kept a pother; 
One year he languished for one hand 
And next year for another." 

The word is probably derived from the 
Irish buaidhirt, trouble, affliction; buaid- 
hrim, I vex, disturb, annoy, distract, 
madden. 

Brag. A "gentleman" or "lady" 
merely exaggerates; a fool or common 
person is said to brag. Just where the 
difference lies is not easy to see. Of 
course, exaggerating is not necessarily 
bragging; and yet it is a common ob- 
servation that he who brags usually 
exaggerates. He cannot help it. The 
frame of mind capable of producing a 
brag, a boast, is incapable of refraining 
from over-statement. Shakspere speaks 
of the braggart in Much Ado About 
Nothing — and we find braggere in Piers 

208 



Some Old Celtic Friends 

Plowman. The word has at least the 
respectability of some age. It was de- 
rived from Welsh bragio, to brag; breagh, 
fine, splendid. It was cognate with Irish 
bragaim, I boast; also with Breton 
braga: "Se pavaner* marcher d'une ma- 
niere fiere, se parer de beaux habits.'" 
It came from the root bhrag, to break. 
English break, to crack, to boast — an 
excellent accomplishment ! 

Bran. M. E. gave us bran, bren, mean- 
ing the coats of grains of wheat. The 
word was derived from Welsh bran, husk. 
It was cognate with Irish bran, chaff. In 
O. F. we find bren, bran. It may have 
come into English through the Breton 
brenn. French bren, dung, stinking refuse. 

Brat. This is one of our most ex- 
pressive words; it would be difficult 
indeed to describe some children with- 
out it. Originally it meant rag, clout — 
especially a child's bib or apron, and 

* Pavaner, "to strut as the peacock does." 
14 209 



Some Old Celtic Friends 

finally, a contemptuous name for child. 
Chaucer uses brate for a coarse cloak, 
rugged mantle. The word came from 
Welsh brat, a rag. The Gaelic brat, a 
mantle, cloak, apron, rag; and Irish brat, 
cloak, mantle, veil; bratog, a rag, are 
cognates. 

Brawl. Brawling was a pleasant di- 
version of the Celtic clans. To quarrel, 
to roar, was a delightful avocation, the 
art of which has not yet been wholly 
lost. In M. E. brawle meant to quarrel. 
The word is derived from Welsh brawl, 
which signified a boast; brol, a boast, 
a vaunt; bragal, to vociferate. Irish 
braighean, a quarrel; braigaim, "I boast, 
bounce, bully." Welsh bragal, "to vocif- 
erate" — from which came the word br aggie. 

Brisk. Milton uses this word, and 

it appears in Shakspere's works; but 

it is rarely used by earlier writers. A 

very learned American Professor, who 

knows all about everything and some- 

210 



Some Old Celtic Friends 

thing besides, asserts that the word was 
first applied to the lively, quick and 
nimble flea. However that may be, it 
was derived from the Welsh brysg, quick, 
nimble, and was cognate with Gaelic 
briosg, "quick, alert, lively." Max Miil- 
ler says that "The English brisk, frisky, 
and fresh, all came from the same source." 
And Mr. Skeat thinks, that "the initial 
Celtic b in this case" might stand "for 
an older p," which would "perhaps " make 
" brisk co-radicate with fresh, frisky" — 
good words! "If brisk is Celtic, it can- 
not be cognate with fresh and frisky.' 9 

Bucket. M. E. gave us boket (Chaucer) . 
It meant "a kind of pail." It was 
probably derived from A. S. "buc, a 
pitcher. Irish buicead, a bucket, a knob, 
boss; Gaelic bucaid, a bucket, also a 
pustule." Gaelic and Irish gave us "boc, 
to swell. The word bowl is of similar 
formation." 

Bug is a word that was used originally 

211 



Some Old Celtic Friends 

in the sense of frightful, terrifying. It 
was derived from Welsh bwg, "a hob- 
goblin, spectre; bwgan, a spectre." Cog- 
nates were Irish puca, "an elf, sprite" 
— Gaelic "bocan, & spectre, apparition, 
terrifying object" — Cornish "bucca, a 
hobgoblin, bugbear, scarecrow." Fin- 
ally bug came to be the name given to 
a disgusting creature, an insect. 

Bugaboo is bug in its original meaning 
with the Welsh interjection of threatening 
added to the word — a spectre. 

The following Celtic Friends might 
be treated as have been the foregoing, 
if it were thought well to continue further 
the dictionary-features of this work: 

Bugbear, bump, bung, burly, 

Cabin, cart, clock, coax, cob, cobble, 
cock, cog, coil, cradle, crag, crease, crock, 
crone, cub, curd, cut, 

Dad, dagger, darn, dirk, dock, docket, 

down, drab, drudge, druid, dudgeon, dun, 

dune, 

212 



Some Old Celtic Friends 

Earnest, 

Fun, 

Gag, glen, glib, goggle-eyed, gown, grid- 
dle, grounds, gull, 

Ingle, 

Jag, job, 

Kick, knack, knag, knave, knick-knack, 
knob, knock, knoll, knuckle, 

Lad, lag, lass, lawn, loop, lubber, 

Mattock, merry, mirth, mug, 

Nap, nape, nicknack, nook, 

Pack, package, pad, pall, pang, pat, 
peak, pert, pet, pick, pie, pike, pitch, 
plod, pod, poke, pony, pool, pose, potter, 
pour, pout, prong, prop, prowl, puck, 
pucker, puddle, pug, put, 

Quaff, quibble, quib, quirk, 

Racket, riband, rill, rub, 

Shamrock, skein, ship, slab, slough, 
snag, spate, spree, stab, 

Tack, tall, taper, tether, twig, 

Welt, etc. 



213 



ENGLISH ORTHOGRAPHY 

AND 
" SIMPLIFIED SPELLING " 



ENGLISH ORTHOGRAPHY 

AND 
"SIMPLIFIED SPELLING" 

"I'll have it so Who shall 

say me nay ?" said Hotspur. The gal- 
lant spelling reformer virtually main- 
tains a similar front. The perpetual- 
motion crank and the reformer have 
pestered mankind for a considerable time. 
They are hard-headed "varmints" to 
kill. The spelling reformer just now is 
notably in evidence and conspicuously 
audacious. He is strenuous. 

Audacity and strenuosity are admirable 
when supported by reason; they may be 
tolerated even in the mistakes of genius; 
elsewhere they are ridiculous and danger- 
ous. The boldest bull that ever entered 
a china shop has failed to win the appro- 
bation of mankind for rational conduct. 

£17 



English Orthography 

The reformers in English Orthography 
have never lacked audacity. One of them 
is strenuous. Very few of them have been 
afflicted with genius ; and scarcely any ever 
upheld by reason. But one indisputable 
characteristic of the Orthographic Re- 
formation is its immortality. He of the 
spelling, very properly, comes and goes — 
his restless mediocrity lives on forever. 

Whenever this same spelling reformer 
feels called upon to discover the quali- 
fications of his assumptions, he is not 
slow to set them forth. A Lounsbury 
declares his "real" scholarship. An- 
other, with characteristic complacency, 
rests his fitness upon the inferences 
of erudition, proceeding from his staff- 
position on some periodical publication. 
Another harmless old gentleman, who 
has written some very funny as well 
as some very foolish things, feels, through 
some vague sense of inscrutable humor 
perhaps, that he possesses the all-round 

218 



English Orthography 

qualifications for reforming something 
or other, or anything under the sun. 
He therefore assails English spelling from 
a joker's angle of verbal trajectory. But 
the most forcible claim to authority, out- 
side Executive positiveness, inheres in a 
professorship. There is a charm in the 
word professor which is most alluring; 
it commands a polite ear; it is authorita- 
tive and forbidding; it wears a mask 
which is more than apt to terrify the lay- 
man. There is magic in these impudent 
assumptions and fatuous trappings — a 
magic which pretty effectually deters the 
non-specialist from venturing to break 
a lance with these Knights of Learning. 
Nor shall those of us who are yeomen — 
mere varlets outside the pale of clique — 
trespass upon the pre-empted preserves 
of these infallible gentry. For they would 
have us believe that thev live in an 
esoteric Court of Scholastic Mystery, im- 
penetrable to the average mind. 

219 



English Orthography 

A very sensible leader, in The New 
York Post, brought to public attention 
the nonsensical efforts of American Spell- 
ing Reformers. It seems that certain 
gentlemen behind the veil formed them- 
selves into a committee of Orthographic 
Safety. Then they drew up a spelling 
pledge called the "Declaration of Inde- 
pendence." This was alleged to bear 
the signatures of some well-known per- 
sons, who agreed "to use in private 
correspondence the amended spellings 
of the twelve words: program, catalog, 
decalog, prolog, pedagog, demagog, tho, 
altho, thoro, thorofare, thru, thruout" 
The twelve words have now grown to 
several hundred. This was called a "re- 
volt," and was said to have been "started 
under favorable auspices and backed by 

plenty of money it promises 

to be a revolution." 

A few ancient reasons for orthographic 
revolution have been exhumed by the 

220 



English Orthography 

makers of this wondrous declaration of 
independence, to which has been added 
the more startling excuse, "that teachers 
have passed resolutions against it" (the 
English spelling now in vogue). 

The Editor of the Post says in closing: 
"Should our orthography ever be at 
the mercy of any adventurous band 
of literary marauders, we should all 
be crying out for another Charles Lamb, 
who, disgusted at his treatment by con- 
temporaries, cried: 'Hang it, I'll write 
for antiquity!'" 

This aforesaid "Declaration of In- 
dependence" is scarcely within the bounds 
of serious discussion. The Editor of 
the Post has treated it fully and with 
justice; that is to say, he has laughed 
at it lightly, pinked it with dexterous 
thrusts and treated it, generally, in a 
Voltairian fashion. The real question, 
however, of English Orthography may 
not be dismissed flippantly, or disposed 



English Orthography 

of with indifference. Opinions of dis- 
tinguished scholars have not been wholly 
in accord; no more on this than on 
other subjects. 

It is commendable of Professor Louns- 
bury to ask: " Who is it that has taught 
the teachers? How are we to know 
that the guides who take it upon them- 
selves to lead us are guides in whom 
we can place implicit confidence ?" 
Would it be an act of impertinence 
for the laic to ask such questions? 

It sounds very well indeed, quite 
heroic, in fact, for Professor Skeat to 
say: "Let some of us dare to use our 
common sense, and not give way to 
what is supposed, I know not on what 
grounds, to be 'good authority,'" for 
many statements not unlike his own. 
Words such as these lose all heroism 
coming from a yeoman's lips; they 
require a sort of "cloth" to give them 
force and dignity. The linguistic mar- 



English Orthography 

graves and "literary marauders" seem 
to think that they possess about all 
the common sense that is available. 

It is of small moment to these gentle 
folk that language serves mankind in 
general. The principal thing is, they 
would have us believe, that language 
was invented for the purpose of affording 
the professorial ilk suitable material for 
hobbies. That they sometimes ride their 
hobbies to death, is not an unwise pro- 
vision of nature, surely. 

Of all human inventions, language 
has the widest and most constant use. 
Its function is expression. In this it 
excels all other forms of art — archi- 
tecture, sculpture, painting. Its chief 
consideration should be, how well it 
performs its sole function? However, 
since language split into two great parts 
with the invention of writing — that is 
to say, oral and written language, be- 
tween which the multiple and extending 

223 



English Orthography 

relations may be likened to a slow and 
inevitable growth — minor considerations 
of each part have thrust themselves 
into notice. One of these minor insis- 
tencies is orthography; another is ortho- 
epy. Both have been discussed for sev- 
eral centuries. Six hundred years ago 
a monk, named Ormin, tried to settle 
the question of orthography. He at- 
tempted to make the spelling of English 
words conform to their pronunciation. 
His dismal failure was but the earnest 
of a long list of failures equally dismal. 
John Cheke, in the early part of the 
sixteenth century, or about three hun- 
dred years after the writer of 'The 
Ormulum," tried his fist also at the 
reforming of English spelling. Cheke 
was a professor; he taught Greek at 
Cambridge. Why should he not upset 
English spelling? We are sure, at least, 
that he did not. Three hundred years 
before him, Ormin attempted to give 

224 



English Orthography 

exact vowel sounds by writing conso- 
nants certainwise. Professor Cheke, on 
the contrary, applied his method directly 
to the vowels themselves. He thought 
to express their long sounds by doubling 
them. Hence he spelled made "maad." 

Following the Professor, came Sir 
Thomas Smith in 1658. Sir Thomas 
wrote a book on English Orthography 
in Latin. This was an act of singular 
wisdom. The title of his book was, 
66 De Recta et Emendata Lingua? Anglicanw 
Scriptione" He was the first to pro- 
pose a phonetic alphabet. He started 
that peculiar kind of craze which has 
come down to us. He was the father 
of a new failure — the ancestor of a 
whole line of failures. 

The next year plain old John Hart 
brought out a book which he had the 
good taste to write in English. His 
book was called, "An Orthographie con- 
taining the Due Order and Reason howe 

15 225 



English Orthography 

to Write or Print th' Image of Mannes 
Voice most like to Life or Nature." 
He, too, insisted on phonetic spelling, 
as shown by an extract from his preface: 
"To the doubtfull of the English Ortho- 
graphic .... we ought to use an 
order in writing which, nothing cared 
for unto this day, our predecessors have 
ben drouned in a maner of negligence, 
to bee contented with such maner of 
writing as they and we now have found 
from age to age, without any regard 
to the several parts of the voice, which 
the writing ought to represent .... 
And accordinglye here followeth a 
certain order of true writing of the 
speech, and founded on reason — mother 
of all sciences; wherewith you may 
happily be profited; and so health and 
the grace of God be with you. So be 
it." He probably found, as so many 
have since, that "reason" was a poor 
prop for orthography. 

226 



English Orthography 

One hundred and nineteen years later, 
John Wilkins, Dean of Ripon, afterward 
Bishop of Chester, wrote a large folio 
which he called an "Essay," and in 
which he sought to reveal the true phil- 
osophy and scientific structure of language. 
His book was called: An Essay toward 
a Real Character and a Philosophical 
Language. But the Reverend one's ef- 
forts came to naught, very like those 
who seek fountains of youth, or pots 
of gold at the end of a rainbow. And 
for the very good reason, that the things 
which he hoped to discover did not 
exist then, nor do they exist now. For 
the science of language is quite different 
from the art of communication, in which 
he tried to find science and philosophy. 
It is difficult for many of us to realize 
that language is merely an art. 

However, the zealous Dean invented 
a phonetic alphabet of four hundred 
and fifty characters. His phonetic al- 

227 



English Orthography 

phabet fared no better than Ellis' "Glos- 
sic," or Sweet's "Romic" system. He 
gave us the Lord's Prayer somewhat 
after this phonetic fashion: 

" Your fadher howitsh art in heven 
halloed bi dhyi nam, dhyi cingdym 
cym, dhyi ouill bi dyn, in erth az it 
iz in heven; giv ys dhis dai your daili 
bred, and fargiv ys jour trespassez az 
ouii fargiv dhem dhat trespas against 
ys, and led ys nat intou temptaisian, 
byt deliver ys fram ivil, far dhyin iz 
dhe cingdym, dhi pyouer and dhi glari, 
far ever and ever. Amen." 

But the good Dean's book went the 
way of mortals, even as he, and made 
as little impress on English spelling as 
the works of his predecessors. 

Somewhat over a hundred years ago, 
John Walker attempted to settle the 
question of pronunciation for good and 
all. Unfortunately, or otherwise, he set- 
tled it no more effectually than Pro- 

228 



English Orthography 

fessor Lounsbury has settled spelling in 
more recent years. Both Walker and 
Lounsbury had good and sufficient rea- 
sons for not settling them, inasmuch 
as, in the very nature of things, they 
cannot be settled. 

Walker assumed the false premise 
that language was a combination of 
signs which should determine the arti- 
culation of corresponding sounds. In 
truth, language was, and is, nothing 
of the kind; but rather a combination 
of sounds which may be approximately 
indicated by the written signs. Expres- 
sion — the sole function of language — 
was overlooked by him; and he failed 
also to grasp the fact that the only 
legitimate function of letters is to suggest 
to the mind the sounds of speech. He 
was over-zealous in trying to determine 
how certain combinations of characters 
should be pronounced. He put the cart 
before the horse. And so down to the 

229 



English Orthography 

present time a long line of more or 
less notable orthographic and orthoepic 
reformers have attempted to do what 
never has been done, and what never 
will be done, by the methods that have 
been employed. 

Although we know very well that 
the Anglo-Saxon pronunciation was meant 
to be phonetic, it never reached that 
state. In the twelfth and thirteenth 
centuries there was a marked change 
in the sounds of English speech. Especi- 
ally was this true when the Anglo-Saxon 
symbols gradually gave way to the French. 
In the fourteenth century "phonetic 
accuracy" wandered still farther away. 
In the fifteenth century the sound of 
final e was lost, and no longer formed 
a distinct syllable, but was retained 
symbolically "to denote the length of 
the preceding vowel." In the sixteenth 
century so called "etymological" and 
"phonetic" forms of spelling were the 

230 



English Orthography 

fashion among some folk, although these 
forms were ignorantly applied, and re- 
sulted only in confusion. Since 1600, 
orthographic changes have been compara- 
tively slight, while the changes in pronun- 
ciation, especially of the vowel-sounds, 
have varied from time to time consider- 
ably. 

Even Alexander J. Ellis admits that 
pronunciation fluctuates suddenly, rather 
than gradually. And while this may 
not be wholly true, still, we know that 
orthoepy is never stable long at a time. 
Man varies the sounds of his words 
in such an incalculable manner that 
it is impossible to conceive it to be done 
in accordance with any fixed principle. 
The variation seems rather to be governed 
by exigency, necessity, or whim. At all 
events, the history of English spelling 
proves that the pronunciation of words 
never has submitted to the rigidity of 
orthography, although it is not denied 

231 



English Orthography 

that spelling has at times modified the 
pronunciation in a small way. 

It scarcely requires a profound insight 
into language to see that usage precedes 
science; and that, while science may 
fashion orthography to its own liking, in a 
limited sense usage must govern orthoepy. 
Reasoning from the known, it may be 
pardonable to predict that since usage 
has, in a broad sense, governed both 
spelling and pronunciation in the past, 
it is not unlikely to do so in future 
regardless of the bans of science, of 
"Declarations of Independence," or of 
other hysterics of spelling reformers. The 
reason of it is plainly to be seen; for 
inasmuch as the function of language 
is expression, it follows that unless lan- 
guage can be understood, its function 
is destroyed. Certainly it could not be 
understood, except by a relatively few 
specialists, if it were to vary widely 
from common usage. 

232 



English Orthography 

As a matter of fact, we pronounce 
and spell as we do, out of necessity, 
and for a similar reason to that which 
debars us from changing our ancestors, 
however much it might please us to do so. 
Words of today are the children of yester- 
day. Many of them do not suit us; and 
if "official" action could erase the "num- 
berless false etymologies" no objection 
should be made. But a convention of 
reformers, or a clique of wiseacre special- 
ists, is as powerless to change the fashion 
of speaking and writing words, as would 
be a convention of noisy crows. The 
change, on the whole, must be slow 
and according to growth. And it is 
advisable that it should be; for it would 
be no less a task to overturn a written 
language, than a spoken one. In the 
admirable words of Professor Brander 
Matthews is the key to the whole situation : 
"We have now to face the fact that in 
no language is a sudden and far-reaching 

233 



English Orthography 

reform in spelling ever likely to be at- 
tained; and in none is it less likely 
than in English." Professor Matthews 
has, however, developed the nimble pro- 
fessorial faculty of straddling the fence 
with a perfection of grace which is 
almost alarming. But, granting for a 
moment the possibility, it is not difficult 
to see that the unfavorable consequences 
would far outnumber and overrun the 
advantages to be gained. The literature 
of the past would be, to all general 
purposes, blotted out. Erato would needs 
be born again, even as the unregenerate 
sinner. The poets would have to appeal 
to the gods for a strong hippocras with 
which to inspire new songs — all which, 
however, might not be the very worst 
evil that could befall the children of 
men. And since the very nature of 
orthography is incompatible, precisely, 
with that of orthoepy, another refor- 
mation would be required within a few 

234 



English Orthography 

generations. Absolute conformity of 
sound to symbol is not possible. There 
is not even a general agreement amongst 
us, as to the exact utterance of com- 
binations of sounds forming words and 
phrases. Different persons give different 
shades and tones to some of the simplest 
sounds. No two organs of hearing are 
exactly alike. No two persons articulate 
precisely the same. And the usage of 
one generation, and of one locality, 
differs from that of another. If examples 
were needed, English abounds in them. 
For instance, sewer was once upon a 
time pronounced shore. The ew had 
the sound of ew in sew (sow), and s 
the sound of s in sugar. In one locality 
door is called doh, and so forth. If 
revolutions, therefore, in orthography 
were once begun in earnest, they would, 
like those of a political kind in Central 
America, go on forever. 

However, if a language could be re- 

235 



English Orthography 

formed by an act of Congress, and a new 
one drafted by the hand of Science, and 
enforced by the police, it were possible 
to see dimly how word-sounds might 
be made to conform to orthography. 
For it is not beyond average intelligence 
to grasp the postulate, that if the number 
of sounds in a language could be exactly 
determined; if these sounds could be 
equally well apprehended by all; if 
a letter could be provided for each 
sound; if the sounds could remain un- 
changed — always tallied by the letters; 
and if a uniform conception of their 
value could be had by all persons using 
them — then any word could be easily 
and exactly expressed orally, as in writ- 
ing. But this condition never has ex- 
isted, and, moreover, the nature of 
language, the laws of physiology, the 
variations in functions of sense, the 
element of diversity, so to speak, in 
mankind, all make it probable that 

236 



English Orthography 

this ideal condition will not soon come 
to pass. 

No one could reasonably object to 
the striking out of certain superfluous 
letters in many words, where these letters 
are clearly the interpolations of false 
philologists, out of deference to supposed 
philologic inheritances. 

The opinion is pretty general among 
those qualified to judge, that our present 
fashion in spelling should be reduced 
to some sort of system. The natural 
question is, How shall it be done, and 
by whom ? Many specialists in philology 
have their own peculiar hobbies, which 
they ride oft-times as ridiculously as 
the amateur philologist insists upon cer- 
tain etymological relationships between 
words which have nothing whatever ety- 
mologically in common. 

No one should deny that it is the 
province of the true scholar to indicate 
the way to orthographic simplification; 

237 



English Orthography 

but beyond that he cannot go. It might 
be pertinent to inquire, by what authority 
have individuals, or conventions the right 
to lay down laws for the regulation 
either of orthography or orthoepy as 
against general usage? It requires, and 
justly so, the consent and co-operation of 
the majority of English-speaking people 
to change radically either their pro- 
nunciation or their spelling, however 
good, or bad, the change might be. 

If orthography is a growth, it has 
doubtless been marred by false and 
fussy etymologists, just as it has been 
helped and beautified by scholars, whose 
judgment was not sapped by their scho- 
lastic stunts. Nevertheless, in the main, 
orthography must find its simplification, 
its purity and growth, in usage rather 
than in the dogmatic dictates of the 
professorial clique. 

So far as I know, no one makes a 
plea for present English spelling on 

238 



English Orthography 

the grounds of its "sacredness," or "in- 
spiration," as Professor Matthews seems 
to think. One scarcely needs to grow 
old before learning to take with the 
eternal grain of salt many statements 
made by self-anointed authorities. The 
great trouble with this class of reformers 
is, that they overreach and calk them- 
selves. 

Richard Grant White adhered to many 
of these views long ago; and while 
they are no more original for that reason, 
they are none the less pat today. 

Some of those who are loudest in 
their protestations against the present 
style in spelling — those who insist that 
it should conform to sound, and hence 
acquire a shifting value — are not blind 
to the fact that a changing orthography 
would be a bad thing. It is well recog- 
nized that in rhyme, for instance, the 
correspondence of sound is vital, rather 
than of form. 

239 



English Orthography 

Our present method of spelling may 
be very "contemptible," as Professor 
Lounsbury says; and the reasons given 
for adhering to it instead of "reforming" 
it to the verge and pitch of anarchy 
may be even more "contemptible," as 
the learned Professor clearly states; yet 
I fail to see wherein Professor Louns- 
bury, by either his "real" scholarship 
or his influence on English, is justified 
in his remarks. If, as the Professor 
says, there is "a divorce . . . be- 
tween English letters and English scholar- 
ship," the "divorce" has not impaired 
English literature, nor in any appre- 
ciable degree the enjoyment of it; it 
has not added in noticeable profusion to 
the laurels on the brow of English schol- 
arship — certainly it has not placed a 
tyrant's crown thereon. 

Suppose that the present orthography 
"hides the history of the word instead 
of revealing it": how would the world 

240 



English Orthography 

be improved by revealing the history 
of words, at the expense of a common 
understanding of the words themselves ? 
Why need orthography, necessarily, be 
a guide to the derivation of a word, 
except for the convenience of such learned 
and good-natured gentlemen as Professor 
Lounsbury and some others ? If the 
"consensus of scholars makes the slight- 
est possible impression upon men of 
letters throughout the whole great Anglo- 
Saxon community," so much the worse 
for the scholars. But the accuracy of 
this statement is open to doubt, I fear, 
as well as that of another statement by 
Professor Lounsbury, that, "There is 
hardly one of them [men of letters] who 
does not fancy he is manifesting a noble 
conservatism by holding fast to some 
spelling peculiarly absurd, and thereby 
maintaining a bulwark against the ruin 
of the tongue." I have known a few 
men of letters, and I have never known 

16 241 



English Orthography 

one who did not have something to write 
about, other than kindergarten quib- 
bles and the pedagogue's hair-splitting 
theories. 

Surely, a change in spelling should 
not be the most engrossing pursuit of 
linguists. For the most part, people 
get on tolerably well with their present 
orthography. It satisfies the needs of 
a splendid literature; it accommodates 
the artistic and daily requirements of 
our language. As for speech, spelling 
has nothing to do with it. Orthography 
is peculiar to writing, and there would 
be no occasion for it without. Spelling 
has nothing to do with the higher arts — 
nothing to do with ethics or morals. 
Words are not made by combining let- 
ters, but by combining sounds, for which 
the letters are more or less arbitrary 
symbols. 

Previous to the eleventh century, 
and before the conquest by William 

242 



English Orthography 

of Normandy, only a few words had 
been taken into English directly from 
the Latin. It has been estimated that 
there were about one hundred and sixty 
of such words. But up to the present 
time the number of primary words, 
thus directly appropriated, is somewhere 
between twenty-five hundred and three 
thousand. For many centuries Latin 
has been the learned tongue — the eccle- 
siastic and scholastic language. It has 
been in literary use from an early 
period. Besides this, the Vulgate edition 
of the Bible in itself has been the means 
largely of increasing the list of our Latin 
words unmodified by other languages. 
These words were taken from a "dead" 
language — dead only in the sense that 
its orthoepy had perished. So far as 
English is concerned, in appropriating 
these words, their sounds did not precede 
their forms. At first, the process of 
Anglicizing them amounted to little more 

243 



English Orthography 

than pronouncing them according to 
the sound- value of our alphabet. Thus, 
the adjustment of sound to symbol was 
purely arbitrary. How could they be 
subjected to a phonetic standard — and 
why should they? The notion suggests 
to me the incident of the simple-minded 
fellow, who went to an artist to have 
his mother's portrait painted. The terms 
were agreed upon, and the painter ap- 
pointed a sitting. "But mother is dead," 
said the son. "Then bring me a likeness 
of her," said the artist. "I haven't 
any," replied the son, "but I can tell 
you exactly how she looked." The pain- 
ter carefully noted the description, and 
in due time sent for his client to pass 
upon the portrait. The simple-minded 
fellow stood before the canvas for several 
minutes in deep meditation, silently weep- 
ing the while. The artist, flattered at 
the tearful evidence of his success, ex- 
claimed: "Fine picture of your mother, 

244 



English Orthography 

eh?" '"Yes," said the young man, wip- 
ing away a tear, "fine picture, but it 
breaks my heart to see how poor mother 
has changed — and to think, she's been 
dead only three months, at that." 

Next to Latin, for scholastic and 
scientific purposes, comes the introduc- 
tion of Greek words. Up to the time 
of Edward VI, they were borrowed 
in Latinized or Gallicized forms. "In- 
deed," to use the words of Skeat, 
"all Greek words have to be transliter- 
ated into Latin letters before we can 

make use of them in English 

Thus from a purely linguistic point of 
view, the value of Greek as compared 
with Latin — for the purpose of explain- 
ing English words — may be said to 
be very slight." 

It does not require a great "scholar" 
to discern that Latin and Greek words, 
for the most part, were not introduced 
directly into English, but became Angli- 

245 



English Orthography 

cized through Old French. And it fol- 
lows plainly enough, therefore, that the 
orthography which incorporates unmodi- 
fied Latin and Greek forms, except 
where these forms are borrowed directly, 
is illogical. This faulty logic becomes 
more noticeable when it is remembered 
that the Latin and Greek elements in 
our tongue are small, relatively, com- 
pared with the native English, Scandi- 
navian and Old French. And to be 
consistent, I suppose, our spelling should 
suggest etymologies coming from the 
greatest source of our vocabulary, if 
it is to suggest those of smaller tributaries. 
It may be urged, however, that orthog- 
raphy was not invented to serve the 
ends of etymology, since the purposes 
of the two are to all intents so widely 
different. 

If the phonetic reformers — the "only 
real etymologists" — were to devote them- 
selves more to the task of ridding our 

246 



English Orthography 

tongue of the warts and froth of speech, 
it would be better than making them- 
selves ill over the matter of whether the 
ue should be lopped off the word cata- 
logue. English has needless words and 
cumbrous phrases to be disposed of — 
bad words that need weeding out, and 
good words that need cultivating. There 
should be more exactness in the meaning 
of words, and greater precision in the 
use of them; and there are many worthy 
words whose compounding power might 
well be increased. 

Another fact, apparently missed by the 
phonetic reformers, is that orthography, 
in many instances, serves to suggest ideas 
rather than sounds. This is true in scores 
of technical words as well as in many 
common words introduced into English 
directly from a so-called dead language. 
To degrade these words, by reducing them 
to a phonetic standard, is to deprive them 
of their sole use. 

247 



English Orthography 

As I have intimated before, if written 
language conformed to spoken language, 
one would, of course, be as variable 
as the other; and, as marked peculiarities 
of pronunciation exist in different local- 
ities, phonetic spelling would naturally 
result in confusion. To recur to the 
word door, for example: in one locality it 
would be spelled doh; in another dorr; 
and so forward with hundreds of others. 
The language of the "smart set," for in- 
stance, would be totally incomprehen- 
sible to the "masses" — which would be a 
great pity. As it is, faulty as our spelling 
may be, door written everywhere is 
equally well understood by all. And 
while there seems to be a tendency 
toward uniformity of pronunciation every- 
where, and while that tendency is strong 
enough to bear one standard of orthog- 
raphy, it is hardly strong enough to sup- 
port a radical and sweeping change. 

The etymological considerations of 

248 



English Orthography 

spelling are of little importance to any 
except etymologists. Nine hundred and 
ninety-nine out of a thousand persons 
use language for other than purely ety- 
mological purposes. In these blessed 
days, the poor have to scratch for food 
and raiment, and the rich for new sen- 
sations. These days are not essentially 
different from other days, and the far- 
future, even, withholds from us any 
signs of a rosy millennium. So it would 
seem that the purely etymological aspect 
of the subject is of relatively small 
importance. 

No objection is urged against that 
which suggests etymological trails in the 
underbrush of words, whether the "real" 
etymology is discovered in a spelling 
which retains root-remnants and silent 
letters of other days, or whether in the 
sounds which compose the words. And if, 
on the other hand, the letters of a word 
fail to correspond exactly to its sounds, 

249 



English Orthography 

and thereby, in a measure, obscure the 
word's etymology, which so greatly exas- 
perates the Reverend Professor Walter 
W. Skeat, what of it ? He should still be 
able to teach Anglo-Saxon at Cambridge, 
and we should still be able to read the 
masters of the past, and to express 
our loves and hopes — our joys of flesh 
and aspirations of the soul — our dreams 
and woes — our common thought of daily 
wont, and all the nobler pleasures of 
all higher art. While the history of 
English orthography is interesting, be- 
cause in it only are we able to determine 
the manner of spelling words as we do, 
yet it is not, I venture to say again, 
the most important thing in the study 
of language. 

Professor Francis A. March was greatly 
exercised over the movement of reform 
in English spelling. He objected to a 
comparatively changeless orthography, 
because it "destroys the material for 

250 



English Orthography 

etymological study." Almost any oafish 
yeoman ought to be able to comprehend 
the seriousness of such a situation in 
the eyes of a professor. Still, if a few 
professors suffer for the convenience of 
millions of folk less learned, I, for 
one, have no tears to shed. Besides, 
an approximate fixity of orthography 
seems to me to be essential to the enduring 
beauty of literature; preserving forms 
which otherwise would be lost in ruin. 

Dear old Max Miiller believed in 
a reform in English spelling. So do 
many; but he also believed that if it 
were done, it should be done sweepingly. 
And as to the feasibility of that, he 
expressed grave doubts. 

To reiterate, the only function of 
writing, apart from ideographic methods, 
is to indicate sounds, not to paint them. 

There are many who complain of the 
influence of the introduction of printing 
on English orthography. Little need be 

251 



English Orthography 

said in reply to them; for it is pretty 
well proved that printing gave this value, 
at least, to orthography: it made it 
"common to all the millions of the 
English-speaking peoples." 

Dr. Johnson also comes in for a share 
of blame; but it has been clearly shown 
by White that the Doctor's Dictionary 
"merely recorded a spelling that had 
been established for fifty years." 

Now let us hope that from the great 
diversity of opinion on English orthog- 
raphy may issue beauty and utility; 
and that from our imperfect spelling 
may come a simpler and purer form. 
But I fear me that the signers of "Dec- 
larations of Independence," meddlesome 
coteries of "literary marauders," and 
bigoted margraves of the class-room will 
not force the growth. 

Richard Grant White long ago con- 
cluded that a radical reformation in 
English spelling was first, unnecessary; 

252 



English Orthography 

second, undesirable; and third, impos- 
sible. This recalls to mind an old story 
of a Scotch preacher, who, upon meeting 
one of his hearers after the services, 
inquired of him how he liked the sermon. 
The reply was: "I dinna like it for 
three rizzens — -first, ye read it; second, 
ye dinna read it weel; and third, it 
was na worth readin'." 



253 



WORDS WHICH HAVE CHANGED 
SINCE SHAKSPERE WROTE 

THE TRAQED1E OF MACBETH 



WORDS WHICH HAVE CHANGED 
SINCE SHAKSPERE WROTE 

THE TRAGEDIE OF MACBETH 

(A Few Examples from Elizabethan English) 

Abound, "aboundeth in wickednesse"; "to 
abound in . . . vices." 

Malcome But I have none: the king-becoming graces, 

As justice, verity, temp'rance, stablenesse, 

Bounty, perseverance, mercy, lowlinesse, 

Devotion, patience, courage, fortitude, 

I have no rellish of them, but abound 

In the division of each severall crime, 

Acting in many wayes. 

Act IV, Sc. HI 

Abuse, "to deceive"; "Abuses me to damne me." 

Macbeth Now o're the one halfe-world 

Nature seems dead, and wicked dreames abuse 

The curtain'd sleepe. 

Act II, Sc. I 

Addition, "title; mark of distinction." 

Rosse In which addition, haile, most worthy thane! 

Act I, Sc. Ill 

Adhere, "suit, agree, befitting." 

Lady Macbeth Nor time nor place 

Did then adhere, and yet you would make both. 

Act I, Sc. VII 

17 257 



Words Which Have Changed 

Admir'd, "amazing, astonishing." 

Lady Macbeth You have displac'd the mirth, broke the good 
meeting 
With most admir'd disorder. 

Affection, "disposition." 

Malcome With this there growes 

In my most ill-compos'd affection such 
A stanchlesse avarice that, were I king, 
I should cut off the nobles for their lands. 

Act IV, Sc. HI 

Agitation, ' ' activity . ' ' 

Doctor A great perturbation in nature, to receyve at 
once the benefit of sleepe, and do the effects 
of watching! In this slumbry agitation, 
besides her walking and other actuall perform- 
ances, what, at any time, have you heard her say ? 

Act V, Sc. I 

Annoyance, "injury." 

Doctor More needs she the divine then the physitian. 
God, God forgive us all! Looke after her; 
Remove from her the meanes of all annoyance, 
And still keepe eyes upon her. 

Act V Sc. I 

Appall, "make pale." 

Macbeth I, and a bold one, that dare looke on that 
which might appall the divell. 

Act III, Sc. TV 

Approve, "prove, show." 

Banquo This guest of summer, 

The temple-haunting marlet, does approve 

By his lov'd mansionry that th' heaven's breath 

Smells wooingly here. 

Act I, Sc. VI 

258 



Words Which Have Changed 

Artificiall, "cunning, shading into deceitful." 

Hecat And that, distill'd by magicke slights, 
Shall raise such artificial} sprights 
As by the strength of their illusion 
Shall draw him on to his confusion. 

Act III, Sc. V 

Attend, "await, wait for, expect." 

Lady Macbeth Say to the king I would attend his leysure 

For a few words, 

Act HI, Sc. II 

Macduffe Let our just censures 

Attend the true event, and put we on 

Industrious souldiership. 

Act V, Sc. IV 

Beside, "so as to miss." 

Malcome We have met with foes 

That strike beside us. 

Act V, Sc. VII 

Bestride, "defend." 

** Tels them he doth bestride a bleeding land." 
Macduffe Let us rather 

Hold fast the mortall sword, and like good men 
Bestride our downfall birthdome. 

Act IV, Sc. Ill 

Challenge, "find fault with." 

Macbeth Who may I rather challenge for unkindnesse 
Then pitty for mischance. 

Act III, Sc. IV 

Chambers, "private rooms or residence of a king." 

Malcome Cosins, I hope the dayes are neere at hand 
That chambers will be safe. 

Act V, Sc. TV 

259 



Words Which Have Changed 
Chance, "misfortune, calamity." 

Macbeth Had I but dy'd an houre before this chance. 

Act II, Sc. HI 

Chastise, "to put down rebellion." 

Lady Macbeth High thee hither, 

That I may powre my spirits in thine eare, 
And chastise with the valour of my tongue 
All that impeides thee from the golden round 
Which fate and metaphysicall ayde doth seeme 
To have thee crown'd withall. 

Act 7, Sc. V 

Chops, "jaws." 

Captaine Which nev'r shooke hands nor bad farwell to him 
Till he unseam'd him from the nave to th' chops 
And fix'd his head upon our battlements. 

Act I, Sc. II 

Dispaire, "cease to trust in." 

Macduffe Dispaire thy charme; 

And let the angell whom thou still hast serv'd 
Tell thee Macduffe was from his mother's womb 
Untimely ript. 

Act V y Sc. VII 

Dispatch, "management." 

Lady Macbeth And you shall put 

This night's great business into my dispatch. 

Act 7, Sc. V 

Drenched, "drowned, submerged." 

Lady Macbeth .... when in swinish sleepe 
Their drenched natures lyes as in a death. 

Act I, Sc. VII 

260 



Words Which Have Changed 

Fact, "crime" — "Still retained in legal phrase 

'before the fact.'" 

Lenox .... how monstrous 

It was for Malcome and for Donalbane 
To kill their gracious father ? damned fact! 

Act III, Sc. VI 

Fast, "sound, now used only in the phrase 'fast 
asleep. ' " 

Gentlewoman Since his Mijesty went into the field 
I have seen her rise from her bed, throw her 
night-gown upon her, unlocke her closset, take 
foorth paper, folde it, write upon't, read it, 
afterwards seale it, and againe returne to bed; 
yet all this while in a most fast sleepe. 

Act V, Sc. I 
Filthie, "murky." 

Witches, all Padock calls anon. 

Faire is foule, and foule is faire, 
Hover through th' fogge and filthie ayre. 

Act I, Sc. I 

Gall, "poison, venom." 
Lady Macbeth Gome to my woman's brests, 

And take my milke for gall, you murth'ring min- 
isters. 

Act I, Sc. V 

Harness, "armour." 

Macbeth Ring the alarum bell! blow, winde! come wracke! 
At least wee'l dye with harnesse on our backe. 

Act V, Sc. V 

Holp: strong form of the verb — "past participle 

of help"; now a colloquialism among the 

ignorant whites and blacks of some of the 

Southern States, especially of Georgia. 
261 



Words Which Have Changed 

King Where's the Thane of Cawdor ? 

We courst him at the heeles, and had a purpose 

To be his purveyor: but he rides well, 

And his great love, sharpe as his spurre, hath 

help him 

To his home before us. 

Act I, Sc. VI 

Illnesse, "unscrupulousness." 

Lady Macbeth Thou would'st be great; 

Art not without ambition, but without 
The illnesse should attend it. 

Act I, Sc. V 

Knit, "to bind." 

. . . . " let me teach you how to knit againe 
This scattered corne into one mutuall sheafe." 

Macbeth Sleepe that knits up the ravel'd sleave of care. 

Act II, Sc. II 

Knot, "bond, tie." 

Malcome Why in that rawnesse left you wife and childe, 

Those precious motives, those strong knots of love, 
Without leave-taking ? 

Act IV, Sc. Ill 

Leave, "royal permission to depart or final 
audience with the king." 

Malcome Our lacke is nothing but our leave. 

Act IV, Sc. Ill 

Marry, "to be sure." 

Lenox The gracious Duncan 

Was pittied of Macbeth: marry, he was dead: 
And the right valiant Banquo walk'd too late. 

Act III, Sc. VI 



Words Which Have Changed 

Mated, "dazed." 

Doctor My minde she has mated, and amaz'd my sight. 

Act V, Sc. I 

Melt, "fade away." 

. . . . "the boy . . . was melted like a 
vapour from her sight." 

Macbeth .... and what seem'd corporall 
Melted as breath into the winde. 

Act I, Sc. HI 

Metaphysical, - * supernatural . ' ' 
(See Chastise) 

Monkie, "term of endearment." 

Wife Now, God helpe thee, poore monkiel But 

how wilt thou do for a father ? 

Act IV, Sc. II 

Mortified , ' ' benumbed . ' ' 

Menteth Revenges burne in them; for their deere causes 

Would do the bleeding, and the grim alarme 

Excite the mortified man. 

Act V, Sc. II 

Nerves, "sinews." 

Macbeth What man dare, I dare: 

Approach thou like the rugged Russian beare, 

The arm'd rhinoceros, or th' Hircan tiger; 

Take any shape but that, and my firme nerves 

Shall never tremble. 

Act HI, Sc. IV 

Nice, "accurate with the notion of fanciful, 

sophisticated." 
Macduffe Oh, relation 

Too nice, and yet too true! 

Act IV, Sc. Ill 

263 



Words Which Have Changed 

Noyse, "musical sounds." 

. . . . "the isle is full of noyses, 
Sounds and sweet aires that give delight and hurt 
not." 
Macbeth Why sinks the caldron ? and what noise is this ? 

Act IV, Sc. I 

Oblivious, "causing forgetfulness." 

Macbeth Cure her of that. 

Can'st thou not minister to a minde diseas'd, 
Plucke from the memory a rooted sorrow, 
Raze out the written troubles of the braine, 
And with some sweet oblivious antidote 
Cleanse the stufft bosome of that perillous stuffe 
Which weighes upon the heart ? 

Act V, Sc. Ill 

Occasion, "necessity." 
Lady Macbeth Hearke! more knocking: 

Get on your night-gowne, least occasion call us 
And shew us to be watchers : be not lost 
So poorely in your thoughts. 

Act II, Sc. II 

Peake, "grow sickly." 

First Witch Wearie sev'nights nine times nine 
Shall he dwindle, peake, and pine; 

Act I, Sc. Ill 

Predominance, "astrological influence." 

"Fooles by heavenly compulsion, knaves, 
theeves, and treachers by sphericall predominance, 
drunkards, lyars, and adulterers by an enforc'd 
obedience of planatary influence." 

Rosse Is 't night's predominance, or the dayes shame, 
That darknesse does the face of earth intombe, 
When living light should kisse it ? 

Act II, Sc. IV 

264 



Words Which Have Changed 

Quell; usually a verb; "murder, to slay" — 

slightly euphemistic. 

Lady Macbeth What not put upon 

His spungie officers, who shall bear the guilt 
Of our great quell. 

Act I, Sc. VII 

Ravel'd, "entangled." 

. . "as you would unwind her love from him, 
Least it should ravell and be good to none." 

Macbeth Sleepe that knits up the ravel'd sleave of care. 

Act II, Sc. II 

Ravishing, "rapid, swift." 

Macbeth Alarum'd by his centinell, the wolfe, 

Whose howle's his watch, thus with his stealthy 

pace, 
With Tarquin's ravishing slides, towards his 

designe 

Moves like a ghost. 

Act II, Sc. I 

Reflection, "direct shining." 

"May never glorious sunne reflex his beames 
Upon the countrey where you make abode." 

Relation, "report." 

" I will believe thee and make my senses credite 
thy relation." 

Roote, "progenitor." 

Banquo Thou hast it now, king, Cawdor, Glamis, all, 

As the weyard women promis'd; and I feare 

Thou playd'st most fowly for't: yet it was saide 

It should not stand in thy posterity, 

But that myselfe should be the roote and father 

Of many kings. 

Act III, Sc. I 

265 



Words Which Have Changed 

Remorse, " compassion.' ' 

Lady Macbeth Come, you spirits 

That tend on mortall thoughts, unsex me here, 
And fill me, from the crowne to th' toe, top-full 
Of direst crueltie! make thick my blood, 
Stop up th' accesse and passage to remorse, 
That no compunctious visitings of nature 
Shake my full purpose, etc. 

Act I, Sc. V 
Sewer, "chief butler." 

Clap me a clean towell about you, like a sewer; 
and bare-headed march afore it (i. e., the dinner) 
with good confidence. — Jonson 

Sleave, "any kind of ravelled stuff e, or sleave 
silk"; variously spelled sleeve, in the Folio; 
sleive in the Quarto. 

(See raveVd) 

Smells, "breathes upon." 

(See approve) 
Sole, "mere." 

Malcome This tyrant, whose sole name blisters our tongues, 

Was once thought honest. 

Act IV, Sc. HI 

Stout, "proud, bold." 

"As stout and proud as he were lord of all." 

Rosse He findes there in the stout Norweyan rankes. 

Act I, Sc. HI 

Stuffe, "rant." 

"At this fusty stujfe . . Achilles . . laughs" 

Lady Macbeth O proper stuffe! 

This is the very painting of your feare. 

Act HI, Sc. IV 

266 



Words Which Have Changed 

Suggestion, "temptation." 
Macbeth I am Thane of Cawdor: 

If good, why doe I yeeld to that suggestion 
Whose horrid image doth unfixe my heire 
And make my seated heart knock at my ribbes 
Against the use of nature. 

Act I, Sc. Ill 

Summer, "pleasant." 
Macduffe This avarice 

Sticks deeper, growes with more pernicious roote 
Then summer-seeming lust, and it hath bin 
The sword of our slaine kings. 

Act IV, Sc. Ill 

Taint, "wither." 

" . . failing of that moisture it flags, tainteth 
(withereth) and by and by drieth away." 
Macbeth Bring me no more reports: let them flye all: 
Till Byrnane wood remove to Dunsinane, 
I cannot taint with feare. 

Act V, Sc. Ill 
Touch, "harme, injure." 

" Seeing his reputation touch'd to death." 
Macbeth Duncane is in his grave; 

After life's fitfull fever he sleepes well; 
Treason has done his worst: nor Steele nor poyson, 
Mallice domestique, forraine levie, nothing, 
Can touch him further. 

Act III, Sc. II 
Trifles, "tricks." 

" Some enchanted triffle to abuse (deceive) me." 
Banquo But 'tis strange: 

And oftentimes, to winne us to our harme, 
The instruments of darknesse tell us truths, 
Winne us with honest trifles to betray 's 
In deepest consequence. 

Act I, Sc. Ill 

267 



Words Which Have Changed 

Trouble, "the sense of means of physical an- 
noyance." 

Witches For a charme of powerful trouble. 

Like a hell-broth boyle and bubble. 

Act IV, Sc. I 

Unspeake, "to speak the contrary of." 

Malcome For even now 

I put myselfe to thy direction, and 
Unspeake mine own detraction, heere abjure 
The taints and blames I laid upon myselfe, 
For strangers to my nature. 

Act IV, Sc. Ill 

Untitled, "having no title." 

" False Deussa now untitled queene." 

Macduffe O nation miserable, 

With an untitled tyrant bloody sceptred, 
When shalt thou see thy wholesome dayes againe, 
Since that the truest issue of thy throne 
By his owne interdiction stands accus'd, 
And does blaspheme his breed ? 

Act IV, Sc. Ill 

Womanly, "weak, unmanly." 

Wife .... why then, alas! 

Do I put up that womanly defence, 
To say I have done no harme ? 

Act IV, Sc. II 



\ 



COMMONPLACE POETRY 



COMMONPLACE POETRY 

POETRY is so deeply blended with 
man's nature that he has ceased to 
remark it. Poetry and passion go 
hand in hand. We no longer wonder at 
the red fountain of the breast that, 
mounting the brow, falls in blushes on 
the cheek of beauty. The circling sun no 
longer prostrates us in worship at his ris- 
ing — few of us now throw westward kisses 
when he sets. Long association dulls the 
edge of feeling. Beauty pales before the 
continued gaze. Joy dies if kept too long 
in one position. The happy man con- 
tinually shifts his view-point. The wise 
man ever changes his angle of vision. 
Mental relations must forever be shuffled 
if we would play with our environment 

271 



Commonplace Poetry 

and keep up interest in the game. So 
obvious is the truth of this that it might 
almost be called verite de la Palice. 

Inexhaustible riches of poetry are every- 
where evident in our language if we will 
but focus the mind's eye on their beauty. 
Speech for the most part is phraseology, 
and yet oftentimes a single word holds 
all the wealth and spirit of a perfect 
poem. Look at many of our commonest 
words: visualize their original meanings. 
In some we find the savage growls of 
wild beasts: these were born of bitter 
hatred and of red revenge; and others 
came forth from love and large self- 
sacrifice. Some breathe only of hope: 
"the stars have fashioned them" — others 
are sighs of despair — echoes of agony, 
terror and defeat. Again, there are some 
that shine like gold and seem soft like 
silk. A few are dancing sprites of joy; 
and many are moans of old grief. Words 
of passion and imagination have been 

272 



Commonplace Poetry 

called "winds of the soul"; there are 
others that seem like heavens in which 
darkness touches lips with dawn. Some 
words are crystals of human history — 
in them we read what man has suffered 
and enjoyed: we hear the shouts of 
victory and the bugles of retreat — we 
see again the battles lost and won. 
"Words are the shadows of all that 
has been — the mirrors of all that is." 

Incentive meant "that which sets in 
tune"; instigation comes "from a root 
which means, 'to goad'"; depend origin- 
ally meant, "to hang from"; front was 
forehead; spoil, "to strip off the armor, 
etc., of a slain or defeated enemy"; to 
fret, "to eat up, to devour"; precocious, 
"too early ripe"; and so forward in 
such words as: chimera, braggadocio, 
a lovelace, a guy, a gay Lothario, a 
Paul Pry, Simon Pure, a Mrs. Harris, 
Mrs. Grundy, a jehu, a Benedick, mean- 
der, a Goth, a Vandal, a Tartar, assassin, 

17 273 



Commonplace Poetry 

magic, phaeton, sandwich, muslin, mag- 
net, jack, demijohn, etc. 

Thousands of words are crystallized 
poems. To make sure of it, we need 
only to dig them out of time's rubbish 
and to wash away the accretions which 
distort them and hide the beauty of 
their primitive meanings. For instance, 
there is tribulation: tribulatio originally 
signified the operation of separating the 
wheat from the chaff by threshing or 
beating with an instrument (L. tribulum). 
Desultory is another interesting word, by 
way of example. The Latin desultor is 
"one who rides two or three horses at 
once, leaps from one to the other, being 
never on the back of any one of them 
long." Therefore, a desultory man "is 
one who jumps from one study to 
another, and never continues for any 
length of time in one." And caprice, 
which came to us by way of the French 
from (It.) capriccio, and (L.) caper, 

274 



Commonplace Poetry 

had a picturesque primitive meaning. 
"Capriccio, a sudden start, a freak 
motion; apparently from (It.) capro, a 
goat, as of 'the skip of a goat'." "A 
caprice, then, is a movement of the 
mind as unaccountable, as little to be 
guessed beforehand, as the springs and 
bounds of a goat." 

So it is with proper names and place- 
names; when we resolve them into 
their original meanings they often be- 
come musical and poetic, as are the 
words: Mississippi, Minnehaha, Man- 
hattan, Tacoma, Ontario, Mohegan, Flor- 
ida, Madeira, and a thousand others. 

We have not forgotten that Margaret 
meant the Pearl; Esther, the Star; Su- 
sanna, the Lily; Stephen, the Crown; 
and Albert, "the illustrious in birth." 

Those who have visited Lucerne have, 
most likely, ascended "Pilatus," as Mons 
Pileatus is commonly called; yet all 
may not remember that the name signi- 

275 



Commonplace Poetry 

fies the cloud-capped hill, and has no 
relation whatever to the ridiculous tale 
of Pilate's remorse, and suicide by drown- 
ing in its lake, as is so often told by 
the enterprising guides to gaping tourists. 
Himalaya, likewise, refers to the abode 
of snow. 

So too is petrel, the "little Peter," 
who, like unto the Apostle Peter, at 
his Master's bidding walks upon the 
waves of a stormy sea. There is squirrel, 
the umbrella-tail, or shadow-tail, or tail- 
in-air according to "Hiawatha": 

Boys shall call you Adjidaumo, 
Tail-in-air the boys shall call you. 

Some words are so sweet of sound 
that they carry scarcely any more weight 
than a bird in its flight, and need no other 
meaning than their beauty. "A thought 
is married to a sound and a child- 
word is born." We find these scattered 
through idiomatic speech, which is always 

576 



Commonplace Poetry 

more or less poetic. In Lancashire the 
Aurora Borealis is called "the Merry 
Dancers"; and in Denmark the lines 
of descent are often spoken of as "the 
sword line" (male) and "the spindle 
line" (female). Excellent examples of 
the poetic. Again, dactyl, a measure 
in verse, has "reference to the long 
first joint of the finger, and to the two 
shorter which follow." Architecture has 
been called "frozen music"; and we 
have many such alliterative combinations 
as: wind and weather, weal and woe, 
safe and sound, chick nor child, house 
and home, kith and kin. 

What country-boy is unacquainted with 
"the devil's darning-needle," which, like 
a jeweled arrow, darts among the flowers 
or poises over the swimming-pool ? We 
have all heard the puff-ball called "the 
devil's snuff-box"; and we have all 
admired the lady-bird and watched the 
king-fisher, and dreamed among such 

277 



Commonplace Poetry 

flowers of our youth as: Aaron' s rod, 
bleeding-heart, bachelor-buttons, four- 
o'clocks, honeysuckle, brown-eyed Susans, 
morning-glories, passion-flowers, angeVs 
eyes, blue-bells, hearfs-ease, maiden-hair, 
meadow-sweet, lady-slippers, rosemary, 
larkspur and sundew. 

"You call it sundew: how it grows, 
If with its color it have breath, 
If life taste sweet to it, if death 
Pain its soft petal, no man knows: 
Man has no sight or sense that saith." 

How commonplace and yet how poetic 
is the word daisy — "day's eye," or, 
as formerly spelled, "daiesighe"! 

" Fair fall that gentle flower, 
A golden tuft set in a silver crown." 

"That wel by reson men hit calle may 
The 'dayesye' or elles the 'ye of day.' " 

Thus we have the sun's disk of gold 
mirrored in the meadow's tiny flower 
wherefrom its circling silver leaves are 

278 



Commonplace Poetry 

symbolic of the rays of day. Here, 
in the linking of "heaven's eye of day" 
with a field-flower, we discover fine 
poetic fancy and fair imagination. And 
margarita, or little pearl, not of the sea 
but of the sward, — how sweet the name! 
So, in fine, we have the dandelion, 
or lion's tooth — from the French, dent 
de lion. — 

(to MRS. A. H.) 

dandelion peeping up 
From grasses green, 

Where many a nodding buttercup 

Half-wake is seen, 
Where violets with purple dreams 

Are meek and low; 
And golden sunlight slants and streams 

Where lilies grow — 

1 wonder if your purpose is 
To cheer the land 

God gave to men with gold of His 

All-unseen hand; 
Or if it be to teach us, here 

In lowly places, 
That Beauty blossoms ever near 

In flowery faces. 

279 



BOOKS AND AUTHORS 



BOOKS AND AUTHORS 

NOTE ONE 

INSTEAD of cluttering these pages with notes 
and references, which few read, I will give 
a list of authors and books consulted, and 
in some cases quoted from, during the preparation 
of this volume, for the convenience of those who 
may wish to pursue the subject further. 

Abbott, E. A. 

Astle's Origin and Progress of Writing. 

Ayers, A. 

Baskerville, W. M. 

Blair, H. 

Borelius, Tresor des Recherches et Antiquites 
Gauloises. 

Borlase, Natural History of Cornwall. 

Browne's History of the Highlands and High- 
land Clans. 

Caledonian Bards, translated from the Gaelic. 

Calmet, de la Poesie et Musique des Anciens 
Hebreux. 

Campbell, L. J. 

Chaucer. 

vHEKE, J . 

283 



Books and Authors 

Chesterfield, Lord. 

Chubb, E. W. 

Cleland's Specimens of an Etymological Vocabu- 
lary. 

Cooper, W. C. 

Cowley. 

Crabb. 

Dana, C. A. 

Darwin. 

De la Rue, Essais Historiques sur les Bardes. 

Earle, J. 

Eastcott, Sketches of the Origin, Progress and 
Effects of Music. 

Ellis. 

Ellis, A. J. 

Ellis, E. S. 

Epictetus. 

Espenshade, A. H. 

Evans* Specimens of the Poetry of the Ancient 
Welsh Bards. 

Fernald, J. C. 

Freret, Academe des Inscriptions. 

Frisbee, J. F. 

Greenough, J. B. 

Haeckel. 

Halsey, C. S. 

Harrison, J. A. 

Hart, J. 

284 



Books and Authors 

Heydrick, B. A. 

Hurt, Walter. 

Ingersoll, R. G. 

Innes' Critical Essay on the Ancient Inhabitants 

of Scotland. 
Johnson, Dr. 
Jones' Bardic , Museum of Primitive British 

Literature. 
Jonson. 

Ker's Archaeology of our Popular Phrases. 
Kipling. 

KlTTREDGE, G. L. 

Knight's Inquiry into the Symbolical Language 

of Ancient Art and Mythology. 
Knight's Shakspere. 
Lacombe, Dictionnaire du vieux Langage Fran' 

cois. 
Latour d'Auvergne, Origines Gauloises. 
Layamon's Brut or Chronicle of Britain. 
Le Dantec, F. 

Legonidec, Grammaire Celto-Bretonne. 
Liddell, M. H. 
Lounsbury, T. R. 
Mailloux, C. O. 
March, F. A. 
Martin, J. 
Mathews, W. 
Matthews, B. 

285 



Books and Authors 

Maule's History of the Picts. 

Mead, L. 

Mill, J. S. 

Milton. 

Muller, F. M. 

Oemin. 

Patten, S. N. 

Peet, L. H. 

Peile, J. 

Prichard's Eastern Origin of the Celtic Nations. 

Reade, Winwood. 

Roberts' Early History of the Britons. 

Samuel. 

Shakspere. 

Sheridan. 

Skeat, W. W. 

Smith, T. 

Spencer. 

Stevenson, R. L. 

Sweet. 

Swinburne. 

Trench, R. C. 

Voltaire. 

Walker, J. 

White, R. G. 

Whitney, W. D. 

WlLKINS, J. 

Wright, J. 

286 



Books and Authors 

NOTE TWO 

The Changing Values of English Speech was 
written with special reference to the author's 
The Worth of Words (Hinds, Noble and Eldredge) ; 
that is to say, one volume supplements the other. 



887 



INDEX 



18 



INDEX 



Aaron's rod, 278 
Aberdeen, 47 
Ability, 159, 160 
Able, 160 

Abominable, 176, 177 
Abound, 257 
Abstract terms, 124 
Abuse, 257 

Acknowledge and confess, 
Act, 160, 161 
Actio, 160 
Action, 161 
Actum, 160 
Addison, 169 
Addition, 257 
Adhere, 257 
Adjidaumo, 276 
Admir'd, 258 
Aestimo, 161 
Affection, 258 
Affection for words, 78 
Aggravate, 161 
Aggravatus, 161 
Agitation, 258 
Agricola, 45, 46 
Aim, 161 
Albert, 275 
All, 162 



Alliteration, 81 
Alphabet, phonetic, 228 
Altho, 221 
AngeFs-eyes, 278 
Angles, 47, 48 
Angle's-Land, 47 
Anglian, 47 
Anglo-French, 49 
Anglo-Saxon, 46, 47, 48 
118 Annoyance, 258 
Appall, 258 
Apple, evolution of, 57 
Approve, 258 
Arabic, 53 
Archaic words, 90 
Architecture, 277 
Aristotle, 148 
Arsenic, 128 
Art, 98 

Artistic temperament, 99 
Art of language-expression, 99 
Artificiall, 259 
Assassin, 273 
Association, 88 



B 



Bab, 202 
Baban, 201 



291 



Index 



Babe, 201 

Babel, 155 

Bachelor buttons, 278 

Bacon, 107 

Bad, 202 

Badde, 202 

Badder, 203 

Bakke, 205 

Bal, 203 

Bald, 203 

Balled, 203 

Ballid, 203 

Bard, 203, 204 

Bardd, 204 

Bardh, 204 

Barrach, 204 

Barrow, 204 

Barrowed, 204 

Barz, 204 

Bascaid, 204 

Basced, 204 

Basged, 204 

Basket, 204 

Bat, 204, 205 

Bata, 205 

Batarag, 205 

Batte, 205 

Batty, 205 

Bauble, 205 

Beauty, 64 

Bedlam, vi 

Benedick, 273 

Beorgan, 204 

Bequeath and convey, 118 

Beran, 204 

Berg, 204 



Beside, 259 

Bestride, 259 

Bhrag, 209 

Bible, Vulgate ed., 243 

Bicker, 206 

Bicra, 206 

Bishop, 129 

Bleeding-heart, 278 

Blocan, 206, 207 

Block, 206 

Blockhead, 207 

Blok, 206 

Bludgeon, 207 

Blue-bells, 278 

Boast, 209 

Boc, 211 

Bocan, 212 

Bog, 207 

Bogach, 207 

Bogan, 207 

Boket, 211 

Bold, 173 

Borgen, 204 

Borh, 204 

Bother, 207 

Bowl, 211 

"Bow-wow" theory, 182 

Brag, 208 

Braga, 209 

Bragaim, 209 

Bragal, 210 

Braggadocio, 273 

Braggle, 210 

Bragio, 209 

Braigaim, 210 

Braighean, 210 



292 



Index 



Brat, 209, 210 

Brate, 210 

Bratog, 210 

Brawl, 210 

Brawle, 210 

Breagh, 209 

Break, 209 

Bren, 209 

Brenn, 209 

Brests, 261 

Breton, 201 

Brisk, 210 

Britain, 45, 46, 211 

Britons, 45 

Brol, 210 

Brown-eyed Susans, 278 

Brysg, 211 

Buaidhirt, 208 

Buaidnrim, 208 

Buc, 211 

Bucaid, 211 

Bucca, 212 

Bucket, 211 

Bug, 211 

Bugaboo, 212 

Bugbear, 212 

Buicead, 211 

Bully, 210 

Bump, 212 

Bung, 212 

Burke, 170 

Burly, 212 

Burne, 263 

Burns, 79 

Bwg, 212 

Bwgan, 212 



Cabin, 212 

Caesar, 45 

Capable, 160 

Capacious, 160 

Capacitas, 160 

Capacity, 159, 160 

Caper, 274 

Capriccio, 274, 275 

Caprice, 274, 275 

Capro, 275 

Cart, 212 

Catalog, 220 

Celtic, 45, 48, 201 

Central (Parisian) French, 53 

Challenge, 250 

Chambers, 250 

Chance, 260 

Character, 71 

Chastise, 260 

Chaucer, 79, 202, 204, 210 

Cheke, Prof., 51, 225 

Chick nor child, 277 

Chilliness, 125 

Chimera, 273 

Chops, 257 

Christianity, 128 

Cicero, 103, 104, 106 

Classic speech, 72 

Clean speech, 80 

Clerc, 130 

Clericus, 130 

Clock, 212 

Coax, 212 

Cob, 212 

Cobble, 212 



293 



Index 



Cock, 212 
Cog, 212 
Coil, 212 
Cold, 125 

Complete, 168, 169 
Composite tongue, 45 
Concrete terms, 124 
Constantly, 105 
Continually, 105 
Converse, 174, 175 
Conversing, 176 
Copious style, 150 
Cornish, 201, 202 
Course, 169, 170 
Cowley, 175 
Crabb, 173, 177 
Crack, 209 
Cradle, 212 . 
Crag, 212 
Crease, 212 
Crock, 212 
Crone, 212 
Cub, 212 
Curd, 212 
Curiosity, 197 
Curses, 112 
Cut, 212 



Dactyl, 275 
Dad, 212 
Dagger, 212 
Daiesighe, 278 
Daisy, 278 
Damn, 114 



Damp, 125 
Dampening, 125 
Damper, 125 
Dampness, 125 
Dandelion, 279 
Danes, 48 
Darn, 212 
Day's eye, 278 
Deacon, 130 
Deadly, 162 
Decalog, 221 

"Declaration of Indepen- 
dence," 220 
Deed, 160, 161 
Delusion, 166 
Demagog, 221 
Dent de lion, 279 
Depend, 273 
Desultor, 274 
Desultory, 274 
Detestable, 176, 177 
Devil's darning needle, 277 
Devil's snuffbox, 277 
Dewey, 114 

"Ding-dong" theory, 182 
Dirk, 212 

Discourse, 174, 175, 176 
Dispaire, 260 
Dispatch, 260 
Distinctions, 157 
Diversity, 130, 131 
Dock, 212 
Docket, 212 
Door, 236 
Down, 212 
Drab, 212 



Index 



Drenched 260 

Drudge, 212 

Druid, 212 

Dry, 126 

Dude's Description of Life, 

A, 171 
Dudgeon, 212 
Dun, 212 
Dune, 212 
Dutch, 49 



E 

Each, 162 

Early English, 45, 48, 50, 51, 

52,53 
Earnest 213 
Ecclesia, 129 
Edward III, 49 
Edward VI, 50 
Elasticity, 65 
Elaterium, 129 
Ellis, Alex. J., 231 
End, 161, 162 
England, 47, 48 
Englisc, 47 
English, 49, 52 
Entire, 168, 169 
Epictetus, 175 
Errors, 104 
Esther, 275 
Ethics, 63 
Evangelium, 130 
Every, 162 

Evolutionary theory, 182 
Euphemism, 60 



Exaggerating, 208 
Exasperate, 161 
Exasperatus, 161 
Execrable, 176 
Experiences, 130 
Expletives, 116, 118 

F 

Facilitas, 159 
Facio, 159 
Fact, 261 
Facultas, 159 
Faculty, 159, 160 
Farragut, 113 
Fast, 261 
Fatal, 162 
Fatherland, 91 
Feeling, 98 
"Fiery Charger," 91 
Filthie, 261 
Florida, 275 
Foreign words, 49 
Four-o'clocks, 278 
French, 49, 51 
Fresh, 211 
Fret, 211 
Frisky, 211 
Front, 273 

"Frozen music," 277 
Fun, 213 
Future poetry, 86 

G 

Gaelic, 201, 202 
Gag, 213 



295 



Index 



Gall, 261 

Garner, Prof., 184, 185 

Genius, 100 

Genius of a tongue, 79 

"Gentleman," 126, 127, 208 

Gestures, 59 

Gewgaw, 206 

Glen, 213 

Glib, 213 

Glossic, Ellis', 228 

Goggle-eyed, 213 

"Good usage," 107 

"Goo-goo" theory, 182 

Goth, 273 

Gown, 213 

Grady, H. W., 118 

Greek, 50, 51, 53 

Greenough, Prof., 182 

Griddle, 213 

Gridley, 114 

Grounds, 213 

Gull, 213 

Guy, a, 273 

H 

Habilitas, 160 
Harness, 261 
Hart, Jno., 226 
Have, 162 
Healer, 130 
Heart's-ease, 278 
Hebrew, 53 
Hebrew Scriptures, 53 
Hengest, Mr., 46 
Henry III, 49 



Hiawatha, 276 
Hieroglyphic bat, 205 
Himalaya, 276 
Hippocrates, 129 
Hobgoblin, 212 
Holland, 49 
Holp, 261 
Honeysuckle, 278 
Honor bright, 118 
House and home 277 
Hue and cry, 118 
Hugo, 79 
Humber, 47 



Illnesse, 262 
Illusion, 166 
Imagination 98 
Imitation, 116 
Impertinent, 126 
Incentive, 273 
Indo-European, 46 
Ingersoll, 75, 78 
Ingle, 213 
Instigation, 273 
Intensives, 111, 112 
Intonation, 72 
Irish 201, 202 
Irritate, 161 
Irritatus, 161 



Jack, 274 



296 



Index 



Jag, 213 
Jehu, 273 
Job, 213 

Johnson, Dr., 252 
Jonson, 170 
Jutes, 47, 48 
Juvenile, 167 

K 

Kent, 48 

Kent, Kingdom of, 47 

King-fisher, 277 

Kick, 213 

Kith and kin, 277 

Kittredge, 182 

Knack, 213 

Knag, 213 

Knave, 213 

Knick-knack, 21S 

Knit, 262 

Knob 213 

Knock, 213 

Knoll, 213 

Knot, 262 

Knuckle, 213 



Lad, 213 

"Lady," 208 

Lady-bird, 277 

Lady-slippers, 278 

Lag, 213 

Language, 111 

Language, a development, 59 

Language, an inheritance, 64 



Language, a loose contrivance, 

156 
Language, origin of, 196 
Language, the spirit of, 61 
Language-change, 63 
Language-growth, 57, 63 
Larkspur, 278 
Lass, 213 
Latin, 45, 46, 48, 49, 51, 53, 

103 
Law-courts, 49, 51 
Lawn, 213 
Leave, 262 
Lincoln, 113 
Literary dialects, 50 
Literary Pope, 104 
Long-pig, 62 
Loop, 213 
Lord's Prayer 228 
Lothario, a gay, 273 
Lounsbury, Prof., 97, 101, 

102, 103, 104, 105, 218, 222, 

229, 240, 242 
Lovelace, a, 273 
Low-Germans, 46 
Low-Scotland, 47 
Loyalty, 127 
Lubber, 213 
Lucerne, 275 

M 

Mab, 202 
Maban, 202 
Mace, fool's, 205 
Machines, 91 
Macs, 202 



297 



Index 



Madeira, 275 
Magic, 274 
Magnet, 274 
Maiden-hair, 278 
Manhattan, 275 
Manila, 114 
Manner, 169 
Manx, 201, 202 
Many a time and oft, 118 
Manywhere, 73 
Maqvi, 202 
March, F. A., 251 
Margaret, 275 
Margarita, 279 
Marry, 262 
Masters, 100, 107 
Mated, 263 
Mathew, 169 
Matthews, Brander, 234, 
Mattock, 213 
Meadow-sweet, 278 
Meander, 273 
Means, 169, 170 
Mechanics, 63 
Meeklings, 111 
Melt, 263 

Mental phenomena, 155 
Mention, 165 
Mercian, 47, 48 
Merry, 213 
Metaphor, 76 
Metaphysical, 263 
Method, 169 
Middle English, 48 
Midland, 47, 50 
Might and main, 118 



Milton, 176, 210 
Minnehaha, 275 
Mirth, 213 
Mississippi, 275 
Mistakes, 103 
Mode, 169 
Modern English, 53 
Mohegan, 275 
Mollycoddle, 171 
Monkey-nouns, 185 
Monkey-talk, 185 
Monkie, 263 
Mons Pileatus, 275 
Morning glories, 278 
Mortal, 162 
Mortified, 263 
Mottoes for coins, 114, 115 
Mrs. Grundy, 273 
239 Mrs. Harris, 273 
Mug, 213 

Muller, Max, 211, 251 
Mushrooms of speech, 90 
Music, 193, 194, 195 
Music and poetry, 196 
Music, primitive language, 

190 
Muslin, 274 



N 



Nap, 213 
Nape, 213 
Napoleon, 148 
Nascent words, 123 
Native tongue, 47 
Naturalist, 130 
Nerves, 263 



298 



Index 



New, the, 88 

New conceptions, 89 

New words, 89 

Nice, 263 

Nicknack, 213 

Nomenclature, 134 

Nook, 213 

Norman, 47 

Norman Conquest, 48, 51, 52 

Norman French, 49, 52, 53 

Northern (Northumbrian), 50 

Northumbrian, 47, 48, 50 

Notice, 165 

Noyse, 264 

O 

Object, 161 
Objectus, 161 
Oblivious, 264 
Occasion, 264 
Oil, 127 
Old English, 47 
Ontario, 275 
Opium, 129 
Ormin, 224, 225 
Ormulum, the, 225 
Orthography, 225, 226 



Pack, 213 
Package, 213 
Pad, 213 
Pagan, 127, 128 
Paganus, 127 



Pagus, 127 

Pall, 213 

Pang, 213 

Parallelism, 65 

Passion flowers, 278 

Pat, 213 

Patten, S. E., 158, 159 

Pavaner, 209 

Peak, 213 

Peake, 264 

Pedagog, 221 

Pert, 213 

Petrel, 276 

Phaeton, 274 

Phonetic style, 50 

Phraseology, 72 

Physical (things), 155 

Physician, 130 

Pick, pie, pike, pet, pitch, 

plod, pod, etc., 213 
Pilatus, 275 
Ploc, 206 
Plocan, 207 

Plowman, Piers, 208, 209 
Poe, 79 

Poetic manner, 87 
Poetic matter, 87, 92 
Poetic themes, organic, 88 
Poetry, 85, 86, 120 
Poetry and music, 189 
Poke, 213 

Pony, pose, pool, 213 
"Poo-poo" theory, 182 
Possess, 162 
Post-chaise, 91 
Pother, 208 



299 



Index 



Potter, prong, prop, pour, 
prowl, puck, pout, pucker, 
puddle, pug, put, 213 

Precocious, 273 

Predominance, 264 

Presidental, 139 

Primitive man, 60 

Printing, Introduction of, in 
Eng., 50 

"Professionals," 132 

Program, 220 

Prolog, 221 

Provoco, 161 

Provoke, 161 

Pry, Paul, 273 

Puca, 212 

Puer, 166 

Puerile, 166, 167 

"Purple" birth, 101 

Q 

Quaff, 213 
Quell, 265 
Quib, 213 
Quibble, 213 
Quirk, 213 

R 

Racket, 213 

Ravel'd, 265 

Ravishing, 265 

Receipt and acknowledge, 118 

Reflection, 265 

Relations, 60, 265 

Remorse, 266 

Riband, 213 



Rice, 213 

Ripe-apple theory, 181 
Roman Empire, 128 
Romic system, 228 
Roosevelt, Theodore, 170 
Roote, 265 
Rosemary, 278 
Rub, 213 



Sacrament, 130 
Safe and sane, 118 
Safe and sound, 277 
Salt, 127 
Samuel, 176 
Sandwich, 274 
Saxon, 47, 48 
Say, 174 

Scandinavian, 48 
Scholar, 130 
Science, 98 
Science, origin of, 196 
Scintillating, 150 
Seer, 130 

Semitic languages, 53 
Sewer, 236, 266 
Shakspere,75,76,106, 120, 148, 
169, 170, 173, 176, 210, 286 
Shamrock, 213 
Sheridan, K. B., 176 
Ship, 213 
Shore, 236 
Short-pig, 63 
Signs, 59 
Simon pure, 273 
Simplicity, 64 



300 



Index 



Skeat, Prof., 211, 223 

Skein, 213 

Slap, 213 

Sleave, 266 

Slough, 213 

Smells, 266 

Smith, Sir Thos., 225 

Snag, 213 

Snob, 127 

Sole, 266 

Soul of words, 69 

Sounds, 59 

Southern (Saxon), 50 

Spate, 213 

Speak, 174, 175 

Spelling, 50 

Spelling reformers, 50 

Spencer, Herbert, 137, 175 

Spenser, 107 

Spinning wheel, 91 

Spirit of a tongue, 69, 70 

Spiritual (things), 155 

Spoil, 273 

Spout, 174 

Spree 213 

Spurt, 174 

"Square," 206 

Squirrel, 276 

Stab, 213 

Steam engine, 91 

Stephen, 275 

Stevenson, R. L n 175 

Story, 173 

Stout, 266 

Street, 126 

Strength, 64 



Strenuous, 170, 173 

Stuffe, 266 

Style, 81, 137, 138, 139, 140, 
141, 142, 143, 144, 145, 146, 
147, 148, 149. 150, 151, 152 

Suggestion, 72, 267 

Summer, 267 

Sundew, 278 

Susanna, 275 

Swift, Mr., 208 

Swinburne, 75, 79 

Symbols, 60 

Syntax, 97 



Tack, tall, taper, tether, twig, 

213 
Tacoma, 275 
Taint, 267 
Tale, 173, 174 
Talent, 159, 160 
Talentum, 160 
Talk, 174, 175 
Tantalize, 161 
Tantalus, 161 
Tartar, 273 
Technique, 98 
Tell, 174, 176 
Tenderness for words, 79 
Tennyson, 79 
Term, 167, 168 
Terminology, 134 
Teutonic dialects, 46 
Thames, 47 
Tho, 221 
Thomson, 166 



301 



Index 



Thoro, 221 
Thorofare, 221 
"Thread-bare" themes, 87, 

92,93 
Thru, 221 
Thruout, 221 
Tones, 60 
Touch, 267 
Tribulatio, 274 
Tribulation, 274 
Tribulum, 274 
Trifles, 267 
Trouble, 268 
True as Gospel, 118 



U 



Unable, 160 
Unspeak, 268 
Untitled, 268 
Utility, 64 



Vandal, 273 
Variations, 123 
Verbena, 129 
Vitriol, 129 
Voltaire, 79 
Vulgarisms, 133 



W 

Walker, Jno., 229 

Wars of the Roses, 50 

Way, 169 

Weal and woe, 277 

Well and good, 118 

Welsh, 201, 202 

Welt, 213 

Wessex, 47, 48, 52 

Whimwam, 206 

White, R. G., 239, 252 

Whitman, Walt, 91 

Whole, 168, 162 

Wilkins, Dean, 227 

Wind and weather, 277 

"Winds of the Soul," 273 

Womanly, 268 

Word-meanings, 131, 133 

Word-mosaics, 61 

Words, 167, 168, 74 

Words, hygienic cleanliness 

of, 80 
Words, origin of, 80 
Worse, 203 



Youthful, 167 



302 



FEB 10 1903 



